Hamad Rita, Fernald Lia C H
Division of General Medical Disciplines, Stanford University, 1070 Arastradero Road, Palo Alto, CA, 94304, USA.
School of Public Health, University of California Berkeley, 50 University Hall, Berkeley, CA, 94720, USA.
Int J Equity Health. 2015 Aug 5;14:62. doi: 10.1186/s12939-015-0194-7.
Social and economic conditions are powerful determinants of women's health status. Microcredit, which involves the provision of small loans to low-income women in the hopes of improving their living conditions, is an increasingly popular intervention to improve women's socioeconomic status. Studies examining the health effects of microcredit programs have had mixed results.
We conduct a cross-sectional study among female clients of a non-profit microcredit program in Peru (N = 1,593). The predictor variable is length of microcredit participation. We conduct bivariate and multivariate linear regressions to examine the associations between length of microcredit participation and a variety of measures of women's health. We control for participants' sociodemographic characteristics.
We find that longer participation is associated with decreased depressive symptoms, increased social support, and increased perceived control, but these differences are attenuated with the inclusion of covariates. We find no association between length of participation and contraception use, cancer screening, or self-reported days sick.
These results demonstrate a positive association between length of microcredit participation and measures of women's psychological health, but not physical health. These findings contribute to the discussion on the potential of microcredit programs to address the socioeconomic determinants of health, and suggest that addressing socioeconomic status may be a key way to improve women's health worldwide.
社会和经济状况是女性健康状况的有力决定因素。小额信贷是指向低收入女性提供小额贷款以期改善其生活条件，它作为一种改善女性社会经济地位的干预措施越来越受欢迎。考察小额信贷项目对健康影响的研究结果不一。
我们在秘鲁一个非营利性小额信贷项目的女性客户中开展了一项横断面研究（N = 1593）。预测变量是参与小额信贷的时长。我们进行了双变量和多变量线性回归，以考察参与小额信贷的时长与多种女性健康指标之间的关联。我们对参与者的社会人口学特征进行了控制。
我们发现参与时间越长，抑郁症状越少、社会支持增加、感知到的掌控感增强，但纳入协变量后这些差异有所减弱。我们发现参与时长与避孕措施使用、癌症筛查或自我报告的患病天数之间没有关联。
这些结果表明参与小额信贷的时长与女性心理健康指标之间存在正相关，但与身体健康指标无关。这些发现有助于讨论小额信贷项目在解决健康的社会经济决定因素方面的潜力，并表明解决社会经济地位问题可能是改善全球女性健康的关键途径。
