“The results demonstrate that microcredit financing
is positively associated with wealth acquisition but worsened CVD risk status”
Statement by
researchers from the University of West Indies, Mona, and Florida State
University, Tallahassee, in the United States on their study linking
microcredit loans and an increase in CVD risk.
Folks, more evidence is surfacing that points to a
link between increased wealth and poor health due to bad eating choices.
This as a joint study conducted by the researchers
from the University of West Indies, Mona, and Florida State University,
Tallahassee, in the United States between December 2007 and September 2008
suggests borrowing microcredit loans increases the risk of CVD (Cardio-Vascular
disease) as reported in the article “Microcredit
Leads To ‘Richer But Fatter’ Jamaicans”, published Wednesday January 13,
2016, The Jamaica Gleaner.
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The study, titled, Richer but fatter: The
unintended consequences of microcredit financing on household health and
expenditure in Jamaica, was done by analyzing the JNBS (Jamaica National
Building Society) database of microcredit users to come to this interesting
conclusion.
Their findings, published in 2014 in Tropical
Medicine and International Health, a European journal, showed that:
1. More
male and female beneficiaries were overweight compared to non-beneficiaries
2. 17.2%
of male beneficiaries exhibited substantially increased risk for CVD
3. 7.1%
of male non-beneficiaries exhibited substantially increased risk for CVD
4. 68.5%
of female beneficiaries exhibited substantially increased risk for CVD
5. 63.3%
of female non-beneficiaries exhibited substantially increased risk for CVD
6. Children
of beneficiaries displayed higher mean body mass index for their age than their
control peers.
The study concluded that albeit microcredit was
another means by which Jamaicans could support themselves in these difficult
financial times.
The researchers in the joint were:
1. Claremont
Kirton
2. Colette
Cunningham-Myrie
3. Georgia
McLeod
4. Georgiana
Gordon-Strachan
5. Kristin
Fox
6. Raphael
Fraser
7. Terrence
Forrester
Micro-credit was another means of financing that is
becoming popular aside from depending on increasing remittances based on the
JCC (Jamaica Chamber of Commerce) Conference Board's Survey of Consumer
Confidence published in July 2015 as explained in my blog article
entitled “World
Bank's Global Remittance Slowdown - Why Jamaica's Remittance will slow in 2016
as Saudi Arabia Runs out of US Dollars”.
With more money to spend, the working class now had
more disposable income. Consequently, they could spoil themselves as well as
their children by opting to eat more unhealthy foods, such as fast food, canned
foods as well as packaged snacks high in refined carbohydrates, fats and salt.
This change in diet due to their increasing wealth
corresponds with my conclusion that it persons with more disposable income in
Jamaica that are more malnourished because of their food choices based on UNFAO
and IICA Reports as detailed in my blog article
entitled “How
UNFAO and IICA Reports indicate that Wealthy Jamaicans are malnourished”.
So how did the researcher analyze the data to come
to these conclusions?
Researcher
study micro-credit beneficiaries in JNBS Database - Live data and non-beneficiaries
as control
Their method of analysis looked at some 726
households of microcredit loan beneficiaries within the JNBS (Jamaica National
Building Society) database of microcredit users between December 2007 and
September 2008.
To make sure that they had a baseline for
comparison, they also chose 726 control, or non-beneficiaries, by age, sex, and
community to match with the 726 in the study. The researchers then administered
a questionnaire to collect data on:
1. Health
2. Household
expenditure
3. Weight
4. Height
5. Waist
circumference
6. Blood
pressure measurements
The research team took these measurements where
necessary for an adults and one child (aged six-16 years) as a sample of each
household. Not sure how they chose which
child and which adult, as this may be a source of bias, as they could have
easily chose the fattest persons in the household to make their study look
better.
There may be other factor that may be contributing
to their increased risk of CVD's i.e. heart attack, Stroke and hypertension, as
they may have been obese or eating fast food, canned foods as well as packaged
snacks high in refined carbohydrates, fats and salt long before they began
living on microcredit e.g. from remittances.
To counter this, they chose participants that had
been receiving disbursements from JNBS micro financing scheme for the past two
(2) years, borrowing as much as JA$30,000 to JA$500,000.
Good to note here that the microcredit loan
beneficiaries' average annual per capita household expenditure was JA$160,574
while controls (non-beneficiaries) spent JA$108,578, as the non-beneficiaries
probably had money coming from other sources, such as remittances as explained
in my blog
article entitled “How
UNFAO and IICA Reports indicate that Wealthy Jamaicans are malnourished”.
So what does this suggest about the wealth
inequality in Jamaica?
Micro-credit
and CVD - CVD's increase correlates to rise of micro-credit in Jamaica
It implies that the wealth inequality isn't really a
factor in who is obese and has risk factors for CVD's i.e. heart attack, Stroke
and hypertension and co-morbidity for other conditions such as co-morbidity.
Still, in their defense, there is an awful lot of
published research that indicates that CVD risk correctly correlates to
increasing wealth from increasing access to micro-credit. These researchers had
focused primarily on whether or not persons using micro-credit schemes were
more likely to end up in hospital with CVD's i.e. heart attack, Stroke and
hypertension than other patients that were not using micro-credit facilities.
As such, the joint study is unique in that it uses
the JNBS database of microcredit users instead of hospital records, opting to
go out and measure the participants in the study and as such garner more
accurate, relevant data on their condition instead of using hospital records.
This choice of focus was probably influenced by the
fact that access to UHWI (University Hospital of the West Indies) records as
well as other public hospitals was difficult to get not to mention poor record
keeping as it relates to the security of patient medical records as noted in “Still No
Privacy For Patients - Medical Records At State-Run Facilities Not Being
Secured Despite Promised Changes More Than One Year Ago”, published Sunday
December 1, 2013, by Tyrone Reid, The
Jamaica Gleaner.
Of course, increasingly, health and money management
programs are now being targeted at people who access micro-credit, to quote the
researchers study: “We support the economic and other developmental benefits of
microcredit financing but recommend that health promotion should be
incorporated in such schemes to mitigate against a possible increase in CVD
risk among beneficiaries. A number of initiatives report success in coupling
microcredit with other innovative ideas inclusive of health promotion and
education programmes ... and money management”.
This study in my mind is ground-breaking, as not
only increase remittances but also access to micro-credit is changing the diet
of Jamaicans to be more like the wealthier “Uptown” people and wealthier people
in the island.
This may be what the UNFAO and IICA Reports may have
seen when they'd declared that some 200,000 “wealthy” persons in Jamaica are
malnourished as detailed in my blog article
entitled “How
UNFAO and IICA Reports indicate that Wealthy Jamaicans are malnourished”.
The wealthy malnourished are not just “uptown
people”; it may also include persons with increase disposable income thanks to
the rise of micro-credit in Jamaica.
Here’s the link:
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