Thursday, December 17, 2009

Study Finds Orphanages OK Option

Thanks to SustainableFamilies for the link to this important study of orphanage care v. community care for children in Cambodia, Ethiopia, Hyderabad and Nagaland in India, Kenya, and Tanzania:

A Duke University study of more than 3,000 orphaned and abandoned children in
five Asian and African countries has found that children in institutional orphanages fare as well or better than those who live in the community.

The findings contrast sharply with research that associates institutions with poorer health and well-being, and the policies adopted by many international agencies/ governments.

"Our research is not saying that institutions are better. What we found is that institutions may be a viable option for some kids," said study leader Kathryn Whetten, director of the Center for Health Policy at the Duke Global Health Institute. "As the number of orphans continues to rise worldwide, it is vital not to discount orphanages before assessing whether they are harmful to the millions of children for whom they care."

Whetten's research team compared the physical health, cognitive functioning, emotion, behaviour and growth of orphaned or abandoned children ages 6-12, half of them living in institutions and the other half dwelling in the community. The study found that children in institutions in five countries reported significantly better health scores, lower prevalence of recent sickness and fewer emotional difficulties than community dwelling children. These findings suggest the overall health of children in orphanages is no worse than that of children in communities.

The research team has been following the 3,000 orphans involved in the study for three years, and they plan to continue tracking them into their late teens and early 20s to determine how their childhood affects their life course.

Published today in the interactive open-access journal PLoS ONE, this is one of the most comprehensive studies of orphans ever conducted. Data were collected between May 2006 and February 2008 from children and their caregivers in 83 institutional care settings and 311 community clusters. The study assessed five culturally, politically and religiously-distinct countries that face rising orphan
populations.

7 comments:

  1. So many interesting implications here. Do the researchers think it's because the governments put adequate resources into institutional care -- or that life in these communities is so poor that the orphanages end up with better health results in contrast?

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  2. Good question, Martha. I haven't seen the original publication, just this report about it. I'm trying to track it down. I think your suggestion is a very likely conclusion.

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  3. I agree. Just as we have seen in countries like Haiti where the people are so poor that the orphanage is the life giving choice for children. When extreme poverty or lack of resources are available it is a viable alternative--another reason the definition of orphan must not be changed. Many of these children have families that are just too poor to rear them, they seek help because oftentimes orphanages are funded from govts or private groups--individuals are not.

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  4. I was disappointed they didn't incorporate comparisons of outcomes for their peers adopted into first world nations. It would have really helped (those of us concerned and interested in foreign adoption outcomes)

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  5. There's a longish version here:

    Is this the original? Seems to be.

    http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0008169

    Some of the measures were reported subjectively and I couldn't get a good sense of who the community-based caregivers were.

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  6. I think this is the URL for the full study:
    http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0008169

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  7. crap - it got cut off. here is the tinyurl:
    http://tinyurl.com/ybhbfa9

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