The Impact of Natural Hazards on the Poor Communities in Zimbabwe: A Health Perspective

Abstract

This study seeks to explore the impact of natural hazards on the poor communities in developing countries from the health perspective using Masvingo province as a case study. Natural hazards in Zimbabwe like cyclones, hail, storms, floods, among others, are cause for concern and warrant an in-depth investigation to see how they impact on the poor. The poor’s exposure to natural hazards is always high and this study therefore seeks to unearth the impact of such hazards on their health conditions. The study was qualitative and employed case study design. It employed semi-structured interviews for data generation. Purposive sampling was used to select the participants. The study found out that the poor are usually left homeless without any food to survive upon. Some people end suffering from malnutrition as a result of lack of variety of the foods they eat which in most cases is provided by the donors. They end up erecting temporary shelter from papers and the whole family sharing the same shelter. They lack proper sanitation and end up suffering from various diseases like diarrhoea, dysentery and typhoid due to drinking unsafe water. Due to lack of decent shelter, children engage in early marriages and this is causing high rate of infant mortality, the spread of infectious diseases including the spread of HIV and AIDS. The study recommends that hazards mitigation must be done in a sustainable way by maintaining and improving environmental conditions, people’s quality of life, local resilience, local economies, inter- and-intra generational equity, and local decision-making and opinion. The government should adopt a global systems perspective; accept human responsibility for hazards; anticipate ambiguity and change; reject short-term thinking; and take a broader, more generous view of social forces and their role in hazards.

Keywords: natural hazards; poor communities; health perspective; developing countries; climate change