In the wake of the economic crisis in Cuba, a multi-component intervention was launched in 1996 to improve the quality of housing, the municipal infrastructure and the social and cultural activities in Cayo Hueso, an inner city neighbourhood in Central Havana. Government ministries and non-governmental organizations, such as trade unions, were asked to contribute resources and personnel, and the community was mobilized into work brigades to address community needs.
To evaluate the effectiveness of the "Cayo Hueso Project" as a whole, as well as component parts, a household survey was conducted in Cayo Hueso and Colon, a comparison community in Central Havana. Three hundred and forty five (345) households were surveyed across 15 neighborhoods in each of the two communities. Every adult in the household was interviewed in an in-depth survey that included questions designed to measure social capital, such as trust in one's neighbors, participation in community activities and sharing of supplies and labour with neighbors. It was hypothesized that Cayo Hueso would have greater social capital, having been targeted by intensive interventions, as compared to Colon, and that an association existed between social capital at the neighborhood level and various health indices, controlling for relevant variables. Quantitative analysis is being supplemented with qualitative data from 45 key informant interviews with community leaders, 300 additional unstructured community interviews using the Jellinek method of primary and secondary informants, as well as input from two community workshops held to discuss preliminary results.
Learning Objectives: Apply the concept of social capital to explain how social organization within a community interacts with improvements to environmental health conditions to produce benefits to quality of life in the community.
Keywords: Community Involvement, Environmental Health
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
Organization/institution whose products or services will be discussed: None
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.