A place to live

by Belgin Tekçe

When people are not affluent, the quality of their health is a precious possession and a powerful measure of their general welfare; it is also the consequence of a many-layered set of medical, social, and economic processes. This study shows how the conditions of everyday life in a city that is out of control, short on resources, and growing rapidly produce poor health for some and good health for others. One large informal and unauthorized Cairo settlement is studied to assess and explain the quality of its health by reference to modes of personal behavior, household resources, and relationships to the larger economic, social, medical, and physical systems in which people exist. Medical factors have a precise place in the study, but are placed in context by showing how social conditions mediate and ultimately determine much of the variation in health.