Socioeconomic Stress, Health and Child Nutritional Status in Zimbabwe at a time of Economic Structural Adjustment:Three year Longitudinal Study.

The exact implications of structural adjustment implementation for the social sector in Africa have been hotly disputed and have polarised the academic and policy research community. By means of an empirically-grounded longitudinal study of urban and rural households in Zimbabwe, this report intervenes in the debate by means of a careful examination of the consequences of the implementation of market-based economic reforms on the health of Zimbabweans. In the context of observed changes in the household economy in urban and rural Zimbabwe, the study offers extensive documentation and analysis of shifts in the health status of the people and in their health-seeking behaviour, as well as changes in health outcomes, especially as they relate to the nutritional status and mortality of children. The authors find a strong association between structural adjustment implementation and a sharp deterioration both in the household economy and in the health status and behaviour of the working poor in urban and rural Zimbabwe. This is an outcome which the various programmes for the mitigation of the social effects of adjustment were too weak to redress. The authors make the case for policy reforms beyond these ineffective programmes, that could safeguard the health and well-being of the people at a time of continuing economic decline.