Targeting health services to the urban poor: Is slum geography enough?

Shea Rutstein, ORC Macro
Kiersten Johnson, ORC Macro
Livia Montana, ORC Macro

The directing of health programs and services to serve the urban poor typically takes a geographical approach by promoting public and/or private services in slum areas. The purpose of this study is to examine the overlap between urban poverty of households and slum areas of residence, to study the health needs of the urban poor and the services they receive in order to determine how well slum-based targeting systems address the health needs of urban poor people. This study makes use of recently completed Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) that included special samples of slum areas for major cities in several countries, Bolivia, Egypt, Ghana, Kenya, India, Philippines, and Peru. The innovation of the DHS Wealth Index, applied to the urban population, can be cross-linked with the slum area designation to ascertain the level of geographical concentration of poverty within designated slum areas.