Healthcare of School Going Girls: An Empirical Study from Bangladesh Perspective

Abstract

Poverty, large population, socio- economic inequalities and inadequate access to proper health care facilities are the key causes of under nutrition in Bangladesh. Adolescents are the most vulnerable group for under nutrition and having great consequence as they will be parent in future. Studies on nutritional status of adolescent girls are fewer in number and have great effect for intervention. The objective of this study was to assess the nutritional status and predisposing factors of under nutrition among the adolescent girls in Bangladesh. Education is critical to social and economic development and has a profound impact on population health. We review evidence for the health benefits associated with education in the context of a socio ecological model of health. The health benefits of education accrue at the individual level (e.g., skill development and access to resources); the community level (e.g., the health-related characteristics of the environments in which people live); and the larger social/ cultural context (e.g., social policies, residential segregation, and unequal access to educational resources). All of these upstream factors may contribute to health outcomes, while factors such as ability to navigate the health care system, educational disparities in personal health behaviors, and exposure to chronic stress act as more proximate factors. It is also important to consider the impact of health on educational attainment and the conditions that occur throughout the life course that can impact both health and education, such as early childhood experiences. After exploring the literature linking health and education, we may suggest to engage residents of a low-income, urban community in a process of creating causal models to try to identify new links between education and health and help refine our understanding of the complex phenomena that shape this relationship. We may ask community researchers to map out the pathways linking education and health in an effort to explore the possibility that people outside of academia might be able to help refine our understanding of complex phenomena by positing factors and relationships from their lived experience.