Shamba Maisha: A pilot study assessing impacts of a micro-irrigation intervention on the health and economic wellbeing of HIV patients

BMC Public Health

Research Article

Elizabeth A Bukusi¹  Elijah Onjolo¹  Craig R Cohen²  Robin Tittle²  Jay A Pandit²  Nicole Sirotin³ 

[1] Centre for Microbiology Research, Kenya Medical Research Institute, Kenya;Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences, University of California San Francisco School of Medicine, USA;Division of Global Public Health, Department of Medicine, University of California San Diego School of Medicine, USA;Department of Medicine, Albert Einstein College of Medicine/Montefiore Medical Center, USA;

关键词: Food Insecurity;    Total Family Income;    Loan Repayment;    Nyanza Province;    Repayment Rate;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1471-2458-10-245

 received in 2009-12-11, accepted in 2010-05-11,  发布年份 2010

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundHIV/AIDS negatively impacts poverty alleviation and food security, which reciprocally hinder the rapid scale up and effectiveness of HIV care programs. Nyanza province has the highest HIV prevalence (15.3%), and is the third highest contributor (2.4 million people) to rural poverty in Kenya. Thus, we tested the feasibility of providing a micro-irrigation pump to HIV-positive farmers in order to evaluate its impact on health and economic advancement among HIV-positive patients and their families.MethodsThirty HIV-positive patients enrolled in the Family AIDS Care and Education Services (FACES) program in Kisumu, Kenya were provided a micro-financed loan to receive an irrigation pump and farming guidance from KickStart, the developer of the pump. Economic data, CD4 counts, household health and loan repayment history were collected 12 months after the pumps were distributed.ResultsMean annual family income increased by $1,332 over baseline. CD4 counts did not change significantly. Though income increased, only three (10%) participants had paid off more than a quarter of the loan.ConclusionsWe demonstrated the feasibility of an income-generating micro-irrigation intervention among HIV-positive patients and the collection of health and economic data. While family income improved significantly, loan repayment rates were low- likely complicated by the drought that occurred in Kenya during the intervention period.

【 授权许可】

Unknown   
© Pandit et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2010. This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.