Health Survey

I recently completed a women’s health survey of 15 women in my village with a counterpart for a returned peace corps volunteer who is now getting his masters at (of all places) University of Texas.  I trained Jeneba, the counterpart, to take a random survey sample of our women to analyze the correlation between women’s education levels and children’s health. 

The survey was about 25 questions ranging from age, births, deaths, and questions about education.  It was very interesting and the women were all very happy to help out.  I handed out soap at the end of the survey and other women were very eager to do the survey with us after they realized they would get free soap.  I compiled a few averages of the survey to see what they were just for our benefit and curiosity:  The average age of a woman in our village is around 35.  The average amount of children each woman has is 5 kids.  The age range that women had their first child is from 15 to 20.  5 of the 15 women surveyed have used a form of birth control – which very much surprised me.  The lowest amount of people living in one compound was 6, while the largest amount of people was 34.  12 women had delivered their children in a hospital at least once, and three had never delivered in a hospital.  One woman, Kuy, proudly told me that she delivered all her children in her home, with NO help!