Why New Evidence is Critically Needed on the Social Wealth - Child Wellbeing Nexus for Action on the Social Determinants of Child Survival and Thriving in Urban Africa

Estelle Sidze, African Population and Health Research Center (APHRC)
Sangeetha Madhavan, University of Maryland
Kirsten Stoebenau, University of Maryland
Blessing Mberu, African Population and Health Research Center (APHRC)

In the absence of comprehensive state-provided safety nets, children’s wellbeing in poor African settings has been dependent on families' social wealth, particularly investments and transfers within kin networks. In this paper, we present arguments on the relevance of critically positioning social wealth within action on the social determinants of children’s wellbeing. While we acknowledge the concern that attention on the role of families' social wealth or social capital may encourage depoliticized approaches to social determinants of health (SDH), we argue that examining and quantifying the contribution of social wealth with granular data can provide guidance on how this important piece in the SDH puzzle can be instrumentalized through policies in order to reduce persisting inequalities in urban settings. We highlight the evidence from an NIH-funded longitudinal cohort study (The ‘Jamaa na Afya ya Mtoto project) and propose a future research agenda.

Keywords: Social network methods, Health and Morbidity, Internal Migration and Urbanization, Children, Adolescents, and Youth

See extended abstract.