Diseases as a cause of poverty

Diseases as a cause of poverty

Some diseases are alleged to cause poverty to some individuals; many of these diseases are mental illnesses that affect socialization, awareness, and intelligence. They include autism, schizophrenia, antisocial personality disorder, and certain mental damage caused by substance abuse or trauma.


Poverty trap

A Poverty Trap is a scenario "in which a poor country is simply too poor to achieve sustained economic growth." The trap becomes cyclical and begins to reinforce itself if steps are not taken to break the cycle.


Depending upon a person’s origin of birth, they may find themselves financially stable their entire lives, or at the other extreme, they may find themselves born into severe poverty that seems utterly inescapable. Many factors contribute to a poverty trap, and these factors vary from case to case.


Some of the possible factors include: limited access to credit and capital markets, extreme environmental degradation (which depletes an areas agricultural production potential), corrupt governance, capital flight, poor education systems, lack of public health care, war, poor infrastructure, etcetera. Nations like this may include Sierra Leone, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.


Consequences

Diseases of poverty reflect the dynamic relationship between poverty and poor health; while such diseases result directly from poverty, they also perpetuate and deepen impoverishment by sapping personal and national health and financial resources.


For example, malaria decreases GDP growth by up to 1.3% in some developing nations, and by killing tens of millions in sub-Saharan Africa, AIDS alone threatens “the economies, social structures, and political stability of entire societies”