Recovering from Hurricane Mitch: Household and Place in Predicting Honduran Child Nutritional Status

Abstract

Identifying nutrition problems after the emergency phase of a disaster has passed is a critical priority in humanitarian response. Population displacements following hurricane flooding can promote household food shortages that persist after direct effects of the natural hazard have waned.

This article examines preexisting social vulnerability and reconstruction effects as critical factors for under-five child nutritional status, alongside proximal household and child predictors. The study focuses on post-hurricane reconstruction almost two years after Hurricane Mitch in Honduras, and compares shelters in the capital with the settlement of Ciudad Nueva, Choluteca. Results have implications for humanitarian assistance practices and policy.

KEYWORDS:

• nutrition
• child health
• humanitarian assistance
• reconstruction
• response effects

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This work was supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation (BCS-0076744, A.R. Oliver-Smith co-Investigator); a HURRI grant from the International Hurricane Center, Florida International University for 1999 fieldwork; and a Capstone Development Award, Master of Public Health Program, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health for 2006 follow-up. Roberto E. Barrios, Jose A. Tovar, and Rosa Palencia collected these data, and David P. Kennedy was part of this team in another area. Laia C. Mitchell, Sara Gonzalez-Rathi, Diana Lima, and Priscilla Medina contributed data management tasks. The author was an affiliated investigator with the Honduran Institute of Anthropology and History and acknowledges the Cruz Roja de Honduras, the Secretaria de Salud de Honduras, the International Organization for Migration, Predisan, and the Asociación El Buen Pastor. Thanks are due to Drs. Marco Tulio Medina, Amanda Madrid, Jose Manuel Garcia, Sulema Zambrano, Doris Clark, and Courtland Robinson.

Notes

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