This project involves the dissertation research of an anthropology student from the University of Massachusetts, studying how African women's support networks affect the health of their children and themselves. Using data collected from a long-term project in Mali, the student will analyze measures of social support such as women's accounts of crisis events, 24-hour recalls of their actual support flows, focus groups and in-depth life-cycle interviews. The network data will be related to health measures such as nutritional status, reported morbidity and child deaths over the past five years. The student will test the hypothesis that the nature of a women's support network, its size as well as its strength, affect health. The study contributes to our knowledge of social networks and health in the developing world, and advances a theory grounded in cross-cultural and comparative observations of third-world populations. In addition it contributes to the training of a young social scientist, and improves our knowledge about this important region of the world.
