Abstract
Population Health and Environment (PHE) strategies are argued to improve ecosystem and human health by addressing family size and its effects on natural resource use, food security, and reproductive health. This study investigates men’s views on a PHE family planning (FP) programme delivered among the pastoral Samburu tribe in rural northern Kenya. Three focus group discussions and nine semi-structured interviews were conducted with 27 Samburu men. These discussions revealed support for environmentally-sensitised family planning promotion. Men highlighted their dependency on natural resources and challenges faced in providing for large families and maintaining livestock during drought. These practices were said to lead to natural resource exhaustion, environmental degradation, and wildlife dispersal, undermining key economic benefits of environmental and wildlife conservation. Relating family size to the environment is a compelling strategy to improve support for FP among Samburu men. Kenyan policy-makers should consider integrating community-based PHE strategies among underserved pastoral groups living in fragile ecosystems.
Highlights
Assisting with data collection was a research assistant (a 22-year-old Samburu man from a different part of the County) and two women who work as FPCORPs (Family Planning Community-Own Resource Persons) with Community Health Africa Trust (CHAT) assisting by mobilising men in the community to participate in this research
Because this study lacked a control group who had not been exposed to the Population Health and Environment (PHE) intervention, results cannot be objectively extrapolated to the wider Samburu community
It can serve as a useful indication as to how men may respond should they participate in similar PHE programmes in the future
Summary
Population Health and Environment (PHE) programmes are cross-sectoral development initiatives that integrate environmental conservation, health, and family planning (FP) interventions. Population growth is a key factor driving environmental degradation, which itself has negative impacts for local populations by undermining household economies and food security through land exhaustion and drought [1,2]. PHE strategies address natural resource use, food security, and reproductive health as connected issues all affected by family size: by reducing population pressures on the environment, ecosystem and human health are improved [3,4]. Fund for Nature-sponsored PHE initiatives worldwide concluded that to create demand for FP and environmental conservation, programmes must demonstrate improvements in the livelihoods of local populations [5]. Seventy-nine percent (79%) believed that absence of FP could cause resource scarceness in the future [6]
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