Yet at the same time, poor people -- who lack consistent access to nutritious food, clean water, preventative measures, or a healthy, sustainable environment -- are extremely vulnerable to illness, disability and even death. Click here to learn more about the health of people in the developing world.

That's why CARE takes a comprehensive approach to the problems of health and poverty. Through programs targeting the most vulnerable -- mothers and children -- CARE works with local partners to deliver and improve health services. The goal of CARE's health program is to help individuals and families identify, prevent and manage risks to health that imperil the welfare of the household. This multi-faceted approach focuses on four major elements:

• Reproductive Health including family planning, maternal health, HIV/AIDS/STD prevention and treatment and sexual violence;
• Children's Health especially malnutrition, vaccine preventable diseases, diarrheal disease, pneumonia and malaria -- the major causes of death among children under age five;
• Water, Sanitation and Environmental Health, which includes efforts to reduce water-borne disease and addresses other major environmental health hazards;
• Emerging Health Problems, including disease eradication efforts and emerging infectious diseases.

Get Involved
By supporting CARE's work, you can help women worldwide obtain the services they need to keep themselves, their children and their families healthy and happy. Click here to make a donation.

© 2003 CARE.

You also can lend your support by lending your voice on behalf of women and children in the developing world. Through CARE's Action Network, you will join thousands of other CARE supporters who are dedicated to speaking out about the pressing need to solve global poverty and speaking up for policies and programs that will help us achieve this goal.

Learn more about the challenges of health and poverty. Click here for a list of books on maternal and child health in other cultures.

Test your knowledge about health and poverty by taking our online quiz.