Ana Maria Perez Arredondo

• Environmental and climate change
• Health and sanitation

• Ghana

NRW Forschungskolleg One Health and Urban Transformation

2021. Graduate Seminar in One Health Governance. NRW Forschungskolleg One Health and Urban Transformation

Hochschule Bonn-Rhein-Sieg (H-BRS)

Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ)

Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC)

Msc. International Agribusiness and Rural Development, Göttingen University and Talca University

Lic. International Business, Universidad de Guadalajara

Agricultural insurance, market integration

Ministerium für Kultur und Wissenschaft des Landes Nordrhein-Westfalen

Hochschule Bonn-Rhein-Sieg (HBRS)

Institute of Statistical, Social and Economic Research (ISSER), University Ghana

The influence of social networks in household health environment and risks. The case of urban poor communities in Accra

A promising strategy for understanding the factors that influence the uptake of health insurance is accounting for network effects, given that social connections have a powerful impact over decisions and they usually offer the only means of protection over shocks. The understanding of the way in which customary risk pooling arrangements contribute to the formalization of insurance can only be addressed by using a holistic approach, since insurability of consumption may be driven by different responses to different shocks.

The aim of this work is to detect the influence of social networks on individual choices regarding risk preferences. Furthermore, to be able to improve the abilities to manage health risks it is needed to identify the boundaries of the strategies in place, and analyze its efficiency in terms of economic welfare. The study is divided into three modules. Module 1 will focus on how environmental, animal and human health interactions shape risks, assessing risks at the community and household levels. Module 2 will build on the risks assessment of Module 1 to identify risk reduction strategies and their implications for household resource allocation. Finally, Module 3 will explore household characteristics within a community in terms of risk exposure and participation in formal market insurance and group-based risk pooling to detect the drivers of social link formation and the possible influences of networks on risk preferences.

The study site is the Accra Metropolitan Area, which is experiencing a rapid urbanization dynamic, increasing health risks, increasing urban poverty, and changing food systems occurring along with demographic and epidemiological transitions. Data will be obtained from the Socioeconomic Panel Survey, the-EDULINK urban poverty and health study, and household level interviews using Aggregated Relational Data to recover the parameters of a general network formation model. To identify boundaries and efficiency levels of the risk reduction strategies, a Pareto risk efficient allocation model at community and the household level will be used. Moreover, to estimate how the probability of adopting certain risk reduction strategies is affected by the social networks, a series of probit models for each strategy will be employed.

7.CV_Perez Arredondo.pdf [PDF]