Why Mobility and Health?
An Agenda for Change
Why Mobility and Health
The significant contribution of transport and mobility to development and the livelihoods of poor people is widely recognised. However, the development sector is yet to fully acknowledge and understand the role of transport in improving poor people’s health. In the context of the need to step up development activity to meet the Millennium Development Goals, a better understanding of the relationship between mobility and health becomes a priority.
Research on mobility and health has concentrated on northern and high income settings and on issues such as transport and safety, environmental health and the international diffusion of infections. There is little research on issues relating to southern, low-income settings. Most of the research in developing country contexts is confined to issues such as the rural-urban HIV diffusion and ways to mitigate this, and, related to this, some research on transport workers, migrants, tourists, the sex trade and on construction workers and sexual promiscuity. Some research has looked at water management issues in the construction of roads and the potential for the spread of malaria, bilharzias and filariasis and on the distance of travel to health care for the treatment of HIV AIDS or TB patients.
Everyone would agree that transport can have both a positive and a negative impact on poor people’s health. Some of these positive and negative impacts are well known. The direct positive impacts of improved transport infrastructure and services on health are to increase access to health services, to enable better servicing of health outposts and to facilitate the movement of health extension workers. Improved access can also help improve water supply, which has positive consequences for the health of communities. These factors in turn contribute to reducing morbidity and mortality, to increasing awareness about reproductive issues, and to improving livelihoods and reducing poverty.
The experience with the spread of HIV/AIDS has dramatically shown that improving access and mobility can also have strong negative impacts. Developing transport corridors for long distance goods transport often results in increased sexual activity and the spread of HIV. Many large scale transport sector programmes and initiatives that work on combating the spread of HIV AIDS are now working to address this problem through awareness training of transport workers and sex workers along these corridors.
Please click on the click below to download a PDF version of the 2-page Mobility and Health brochure:
Mobility and Health Brochure (pdf 255kb)
An Agenda for Change
Mobility and Health Workshop, Bern, Switzerland, November
2004
This workshop hosted by Transnet in collaboration with the International Forum for Rural Transport and Development (IFRTD) and supported by the Mobility and Health desks of the Social Development Division of SDC brought together transport and health specialists to discuss the issues and develop a plan of action that will push this relatively new agenda forward. Presentations were made on the following issues:
1. Micro-level impacts of the Almondangu-Jiri road project in Nepal - showing that, despite many benefits, improved infrastructure had the potential to; exacerbate female poverty through migration of male family members, lead to the importation of harmful substances to hitherto isolated villages, have negative impacts on local trade, and increase the diffusion of infections.
2. The transportation of critical and high risk patients in rural areas of Ethiopia – demonstrating how poor handling and positioning of patients on various modes of transport can often lead to secondary injuries.
3. Gaps in the way transport sector approach to the issue of HIV/AIDS with a case study from South Africa.
4. Transaid ‘s approach to transport management in the delivery of health care.
Workshop participants also identified gaps in current knowledge on mobility and health, for example: , lack of evidence about the impact of mobility on women’s health status; there is little knowledge on how rural transport planning can design appropriate transport hubs that optimise positive health and mobility impacts; there is a dearth of disability and age-sensitive data; there is a limited perspective on road safety and the lack of knowledge on safety issues relating to infrastructure and transport provision in low-income and rural areas. The main knowledge gap however was that we do not know exactly where existing gaps in knowledge are.
At this workshop the IFRTD network made a commitment to fully assess the gaps in our knowledge, make steps to share existing research and generate new research to fill the gaps. We recognise that the knowledge generated needs to be translated into practical guidelines for designing and implementing transport sector interventions that can mitigate the potential negative impacts, and increase the positive contribution to poor people’s health status. The transport sector needs to be proactive in sensitising the health sector to the importance of mobility as a cross-cutting component of health interventions, and work in collaboration with health sector professionals. The Mobility and Health international Research Programme is the outcome of this commitment – click here for more information about the programme, it’s collaborators, activities and outputs.
For more information about the workshop see
http://www.trans-web.ch/transnet/transnet8/default.htm
