The possible answers to each question were never , once or twice , three to ten times , and more than ten times . These were summed, with a range of 0 to 9, where higher values reflect greater household food insecurity. We also included a simple measure to assess water insecurity, based on whether households reported they had or had not been short of water any time within the last 3 months.We used two indicators of socioeconomic status that are especially relevant in the context of Haiti: education level and self-assessment of French literacy of the head-of-household. Haiti has two official languages: Haitian Creole and French. However, French remains the main language used in higher education, business, and administrative documents and interactions. This is a major linguistic barrier to public services and social advancement in Haiti since the vast majority of the population speaks only Kreyòl . Education level was measured as the highest educational attainment, classified into four levels: No education, Primary, Secondary, and University or Vocational school. Our additional covariates included gender, age , and urban/rural residence. We also include dummy variables for the three sites, since the contrast between these was anticipated to be analytically important. Finally, we included a geographic variable related to remoteness from services–such as hospitals, markets, and government offices. This indicator was based on time it would take to travel using the public transport available from neighborhood of residence to the closest police station.
The distance is classified into five categories: less than 30 minutes, 30 minutes to an hour, one to two hours, two to four hours,vertical indoor hydroponic system and over four hours. Models 1 and 2 revealed that both wealth dimensions—cash economy and agricultural—are significantly associated with lower depression symptom scores, although the effect of agricultural wealth is about three times the magnitude of the cash economy wealth effect . Specifically, an increase of one standard deviation in cash economy wealth was associated with a decrease of 0.3 points [95% CI: -0.6 to, -0.0] in depression symptom score, while for agricultural wealth, it is associated with a decrease of 0.8 points [95% CI: -1.6 to -0.2]. A similar relationship is observed for anxiety. The decline in anxiety symptoms from one standard deviation increase in agricultural wealth is estimated at 0.9 points [95% CI: -1.6 to -0.2], whilst the association between anxiety symptoms and cash economy is statistically not significant . As would be expected, the results show that depression and anxiety levels are higher for those who claimed that their income is “is not enough for you and you are having a hard time,” compared to those who said that it “is good enough for you and you can save from it: the reference group” . Food insecurity was also significantly associated with both increased depression scores and anxiety scores . We found that the dichotomous measure of water insecurity was significantly and positively associated with a higher depression score , but not anxiety. Results also showed, as expected, a protective effect of increasing education against both depression and anxiety symptoms. Those with higher education levels have a lower score for both depression and anxiety levels. For example, compared with those with no education, attaining the primary level was associated with lower depression and anxiety scores ; the secondary level is associated by -1.0 [95% CI: -1.8 to -0.1] and -1.7 , respectively; and the university or vocational level by -0.8 and -1.1 . French literacy shows a similar trend, but the association is statistically significant only for anxiety score .
Less expected, compared to those who make less than 18,000 HTG monthly, those with higher income had higher anxiety scores, once other poverty-related variables were taken into account. In particular, those with at least 20,000 HTG monthly had 2.3 points [95% CI: 1.3 to 3.3]) higher anxiety scores than those with less than 18,000 HTG monthly. No statistically significant association was found with depression scores. Remoteness from basic service also reveals an unexpected pattern. While results show that living far from basic public services is significantly associated with higher anxiety scores, distance is inversely associated with depression scores.Models 1 and 2 showed a strong association between our outcomes and the study sites. Living in Ouanaminthe or in Martissant is significantly associated with higher depression scores and higher anxiety scores , compared with Cornillon . To assess the homogeneity of effects of wealth across sites, the models were re-estimated to include interaction terms between site and the cash economy and agricultural economy measures, separately. Tests of interactions indicate these associations were consistent across the three sites. However, in the urban site, depression score was not significantly associated with agricultural wealth .Geographically sampling households within three highly vulnerable communities in Haiti with very different economic/subsistence profiles, we confirm that agricultural dimensions of wealth demonstrate a strong and significant association with both lower depression and anxiety symptoms . This association was much stronger than the association of cash economy wealth with depression scores and anxiety scores or other aspects of poverty normally highlighted in studies connecting mental health to poverty in lower income countries. The only deviation from this pattern is that the relationship of agricultural wealth with depression disappears in the urban area. We can only speculate about the reasons for this. It may be due to the low variability in this variable in the neighborhood site in the capital of Port-au-Prince. It may also be due to lower social valuation of agricultural activities in the urban area relative to the more rural areas.
When comparing the study sites, fully rural Cornillon has less cash economy wealth and worse access to services than the other two sites, yet lower levels of depression symptoms. This is exactly the type of equivocal or counter-intuitive findings that prior reviews linking mental health and poverty have observed in lower income countries . Our findings suggest that such equivocal findings result from privileging certain forms of wealth and simultaneously neglecting alternative forms of wealth that may be most relevant in a given context. Specifically, in countries and regions where agricultural activity remains an important part of many people’s lives, we would expect success in agricultural activities to be associated with reduced symptoms of anxiety and depression for a number of reasons. First, in the full range of rural, peri-urban and urban areas, availability of crops and animals for household consumption can provide food security , which in turn has shown associations with improved mental health . More indirectly, livestock and land can contribute to the household income, which also has shown associations with improved mental health . Beyond such direct effects on food security and income, success in agricultural activities might also enhance social capital and status to provide further buffering effects for mental health . This is not to say that managing agricultural assets is not also potentially stressful. Animals can die or be stolen, and crops can fail,vertical farming tower for sale meaning assets can be lost or forfeited. These losses can be emotionally as well as financially devastating: for example in the wake of widespread droughts and associated livelihood damage, farmer suicide rates can jump . Strengths of this study are the inclusion of multiple measures of poverty/wealth and socioeconomic status, including measures of material wealth , basic resource access , income , and human capital , as well as use of culturally adapted and/or validated measures of depression and anxiety symptoms. Our study has several notable limitations. The data used in the study are cross-sectional; therefore, it was not designed to detect cause-effect relationships. Second, our data were collected in three low-income regions chosen for their distinctiveness in relation to the cash economy and using random household sampling, but the sites themselves are not necessarily representative of all rural, semi-urban, or urban areas at the national level. Further, the aim of controlling for all relevant confounders of the association between poverty and mental distress may not have been achieved. Finally, we used standardized instruments to measure key variables, such as depression/anxiety and food insecurity. Although all are designed to capture the current and recent status of households, these do not capture precisely the same time frames, and this may have affected results. Poverty is a major force shaping human biology. Better explanations of how and why poverty matters requires considerations of what poverty means in context . In this analysis, we considered how agricultural forms of household wealth might matter differently for mental health in comparison to cash economy ones.
Through direct comparison of three very different — but all high poverty – communities in Haiti, agricultural forms of wealth were protective against anxiety symptoms beyond effects captured in standard wealth index measures. This was not just in rural and mixed rural/urban settings, but in fully urban settings as well. Agricultural wealth measures also were associated with lower depression symptom levels in the rural and mixed community, although not the fully urban one. Broadly, this adds to the prior study by Hadley et al , showing that multidimensional assessments of household assets differently explain how deprivation can shape health and human biology. Their study focused on infectious disease risk, and here we show that the same general finding applies to risk of common mental health symptoms. That is, we are suggesting that – even in urban settings – it can be valuable to consider assets related to agricultural production – like household crops and animals as potentially important to shaping household vulnerabilities. Here, we also demonstrate that specifically focusing on agricultural assets explains what would be otherwise counter-intuitive findings for rural households. Mental health, our focus here, is increasingly recognized as a core — if understudied – aspect of human biology, and one undermined by lack of wealth and power . This study further underscores the benefits of a more context-sensitive framework in this domain specifically , including for the translation of human biological approaches to improve well being of vulnerable populations .The management of plant diseases is one of the top priorities of the agricultural industry due to the major economic and biosecurity threats that result from plant pathogens. Among the pathogen cortege that crops are afflicted by, fungal infections pose one of the largest risks to food production. Devastating crop failures due to these pathogens, such as the historical and infamous Irish Potato Famine and contemporary issues of rice blast and wheat rust threaten food security and result in major economic losses. The development of fungicides has undoubtedly eased the burden of diminished food security through a reduction in crop failures by successfully controlling fungal diseases. Chemical fungicides, made from either organic or inorganic chemicals, remain as the primary treatment towards most fungal pathogens. However, chemical fungicides have long been documented for their adverse effects on both the environment and animal health, and harvested crops must meet strict criteria to ensure chemical residues are found at safe levels for consumptions.Though conventional fungicides have made positive strides in food security and agricultural disease control, the risks they carry need to be addressed and alternative methods of fungal control should be considered. Transgenic technology has led to the development of crops with desirable traits, such as improved flavor , increased yield, and superior disease resistance compared to non-modified crops. Notably, the use of transgenic crops permits for a significant reduction in the quantity of phytosanitary product applied to the field. However, the public is often apprehensive about GMO safety and has difficulty accepting genetically modified crops. For example, some consumers believe that GM crops carry more risks than benefits and are willing to pay a premium for foods labeled as non-GMO. Likewise, since 2001, the EU has placed a de facto moratorium on approvals of GMOs. Another major concern includes the potential that transgenic crops could damage the ecosystem in unpredictable ways. GMOs can invade ecosystems due to an increase in stress tolerance, causing wild plants to become weeds through horizonal gene transfer , or produce toxic substances to pests that may affect non-target organisms. Recently, increases in pest resistance towards GM crops have also posed problems to the durability of current transgenic crops.Thus, it is necessary to seek alternative anti-fungal agent candidates that can be applied exogenously as conventional fungicides. These alternative candidates should be environmentally friendly and potentially have fewer negative health impacts on animals than conventional fungicides if applied exogenously.