Currently, there are astonishing statistics related to deaths caused by malaria and diarrhea in developing countries, especially the 9 million deaths of children ages 5 and under per year. It is surprising that these numbers are so high when there are many inexpensive alternatives to reduce the chances of contracting an illness or even totally prevent these illnesses. Banerjee and Duflo question why people in these developing countries are not choosing to utilize these inexpensive ways to protect themselves and their families from illness. Instead, people are contracting these illnesses and then must seek an expensive route to either cure the ailment or temporarily stop the symptoms. Banerjee and Duflo suggest that if these alternative ways of preventing disease were utilized it would increase the income of many because they would not spend nearly as much time being sick and not being able to work.
Chapter three introduces startling statistics of how many people could make wiser and more economical decisions to prevent contracting deadly illnesses. Banerjee and Duflo explain that not nearly enough people in developing countries are taking the right steps to stay healthy and keep their families healthy. If these people were eager to stay health, they would choose the inexpensive alternatives which include: ORS packs, bed nets, chlorine for purifying water, immunizations, better sanitation and the addition of plumbing. But why are people not choosing these methods?
Instead people are choosing to visit unqualified private doctors to help them with their illness. Its surprising these people are not utilizing the free services their governments provide to keep them healthy. Banerjee and Duflo suggest that their is a level of mistrust towards government provided clinics because of their unreliable hours of operation and the minimal care they provide. But the minimal care that these clinics provide is enough to help cure these illnesses, the population just feels that since these services are so inexpensive they think that they must not be able to do the trick. If these people would trust the sometimes subsidized and inexpensive methods they would not need to shell out the expensive funds to a private "doctor."They need to utilize the resources that are so readily available to them this would not only keep them healthier but also increase their income.
A statistic that surprised me the most involved the use of bed nets to reduce the prevalence of malaria in Kenya. The statistic provides information stating that if a child slept under a bed net then they would have a 30 percent less risk of being infected by malaria between birth and the age of two. The introduction of this particular statistic provides evidence suggesting that using bed nets could potentially produce high returns. The minimal use of bed nets and the statistic provided implies that if these simple things were utilized it would greatly improve the lives of many. I believe this statistic is very realistic, if it said something like, "a bed net would provide a child a 90 percent less risk" then I would says its very unrealistic. The only thing I question is if so few people are utilizing these bed nets then how do we know this statistic is accurate, wouldn't we need a bigger sample size?
Overall, the people struggling in these developing countries need to be better educated about illness prevention. It would improve not only their health but their quality of life. I truly believe that some people do not trust these inexpensive methods and more times than not overlook them. I also think these people would rather take the easy way out and visit a "doctor" rather than having to assemble a bed net or adding chlorine to the water they drink everyday. Adding this effort of taking the initiative adds more work to their already poor quality life so I think they choose to visit the doctor so they can have someone else provide them with what they need. These simple resources need to be utilized because if they continue we will see even more startling statistics.
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