Health and Equity in Low Income Countries
We do most of our work close to home, in British Columbia. It's a region we know well, so we can have a significant impact there, despite our limited resources.
We also want to do our part to promote health and social justice for people in parts of the world less blessed than BC. Obviously we lack the clout of the enormous organizations that are active in this field, so we have had to focus on initiatives that match our capabilities.
We currently focus on:
- Central America generally, and selected regions of Guatemala in particular.
Education and retention of nurses and other primary health care workers in rural areas. - Determinants of health such as agricultural development and violence in those same regions.
As a rule, people in low income countries such as Guatemala tend to be less healthy and to die younger than their counterparts in richer countries, and the problems are worst for the poorest in those poor countries. Problems caused by lack of resources are compounded by widespread inequity, which can be defined as follows (adapted from P. Braveman and S. Gruskin, Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health 2003;57:254-258.):
Health inequity is the presence of systematic disparities in health (or in the major social determinants of health) between groups with different levels of wealth, power, or prestige. Inequities in health put groups who are already disadvantaged (by being poor, female, homosexual, or members of a disenfranchised racial, ethnic or religious group) at further disadvantage with respect to their health.
Since it's inception in 2002, the Tula Foundation has provided approximately $6 million to initiatives for health and equity in Central America.
Nursing students from Chisec, Alta Verapaz, Guatemala at the National School of Nursing in Cobán. Photo by Aruna Thampy.