Here is the research work of Joséphine Lemouogue, PhD in Geography, as part of our weekly series Les Papiers de la Fondation, articles written by the researchers that the Foundation supports at the end of their research year. The Papiers de la Fondation, scientific articles of around twenty pages, present the results of their work in the form of working papers. They are written according to academic criteria for specialised or non-specialised audiences, in order to make the knowledge thus created accessible to all interested people and to allow for a broad debate.
Les Papiers de la Fondation: disseminating research and fostering debate
“Overview of some geographical determinants of health and access to healthcare in the Ngam and Gado-Badzéré sites”
Joséphine LEMOUOGUE, PhD in Geography, University of Dschang (Cameroon)
Summary
The objective of this article is to identify the main determinants of the socio-economic health’s subsystem, which have a significant impact on the health as well as on the access to health care of Central African Republic’s refugees in Ngam and Gado-Badzéré sites, respectively located in the Adamaoua and eastern regions of Cameroon.
The conceptual framework of the study is built around the concepts of space, population, health, humanitarian and development. The field data and those from the exploitation of the UNUHCR reports included in this conceptual framework were used for the analysis. Datas were collected through a survey of 398 refugee’s households, interviews, observations in the sites studied, and readings. The analyses show that the morbidity rate is 38% in the sites studied. It is maintained by pathologies related to the environmental and socio-economic contexts of refugees. The same contexts, in addition to determining the refugees’s health, guide their choice of health care. It highlights the broad spectrum of determinants of health in general and especially those related to the socio-economic health’s subsystem. It shows the stability of the spread of certain diseases, but the overall morbidity rate remains high despite the emergency interventions and achievements of humanitarians, in the field of health, as well as in those related to it.
There is indeed a living environment for refugees that is unfavorable to their health and a food insecurity risk in the sites. In addition, only 12% of refugees from Ngam and Gado-Badzéré have been able to develop their own business while a large drop in schooling after the primary cycle is also observed, while the resources of humanitarian aid workers seem to be decreasing. The majority of refugees still live in moral and material poverty, which has a significant impact on their health. The current caring policy of NGOs, the state and the communities is geared towards sustainable self-satisfaction by refugees.
Key words: refugees, health, aid, Cameroon, CAR
Photo credit : ©Josephine Lemouogue
