Prevention, Resilience, Efficiency, and Protection for workers in industrial agriculture in a changing climate (PREP): Baseline results from a household panel survey of the socioeconomic conditions experienced by agricultural workers in Chichigalpa, Nicaragua
Authors: Heath J. Prince, PhD, Thomas Boswell, MGPS, Jason Glaser, MSc, Catharina Wesseling, MD, PhD, Ashweeta Patnaik, MPH, William José Martinez-Cuadra, BS
Date: July 2023
Publication Type: Working Paper, 18pp.
Key terms: chronic kidney disease; heat stress; survey data analysis; rest-shade-water; occupational health; earnings; marital status
Abstract
Objective
Our purpose with this study is to examine the socioeconomic outcomes associated with chronic kidney disease not related to well-known risk factors (CKDnt) in four communities in Chichigalpa, Nicaragua that are home to a substantial number of sugarcane workers.
Methods
We employed a cluster-based systematic sampling design to identify differences in outcomes between those households affected directly by CKDnt and those that are not.
Results
Overall, we find that approximately a third of households surveyed had a household member diagnosed with CKDnt. Eighty percent of CKDnt households reported that the head of the household had been without work for the last 6 months or more, compared to 61 percent of non-CKDnt households. Non-CKDnt households took in more than double the earnings income than CKDnt households (C$ 51,845 and C$ 24,295, respectively). Nonetheless, on average, CKDnt households’ total income exceeded that of non-CKDnt households due to Nicaragua’s national INSS Social Security payments to CKDnt households, suggestive of a substantial economic burden on the state resulting from the disease. Households headed by widows or widowers who are widowed as a result of CKDnt demonstrate distinct deficits in total income when compared to either non-widowed households or to households widowed by causes other than CKDnt.
Conclusions
Despite strong similarities in terms of demographic characteristics, and despite residing in the same communities with similar access to the available resources, households experiencing CKDnt exhibit distinct and statistically significant differences in important socioeconomic outcomes when compared to non-CKDnt households.
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