Conceptual and socioeconomic differences on poverty

There is today the consensus that child poverty is a complex phenomenon and that its impact on boys and girls puts at stake the human capital of our countries. To comply with the rights of children and adolescents, it is necessary to eradicate both, child and general poverty, and it is essential to influence into the determinants of health.

Data are essential to identify the most disadvantaged children, yet, it is possible that some of the children with a higher risk of poverty are not represented in household surveys due to the fact that these groups tend to live in remote areas or in families and communities whose presence may not be registered in the official records. Hence, it is possible that all these groups are invisible to the statistics.

This article is a call to public health professionals, paediatricians and other groups, to analyze and study the impact of poverty among child population and put pressure to the institutions that must act in favour of vulnerable groups such as children.

In short, we have improved, however, there is still much to be done. It would be intolerable to have a child who dies of hunger, but there is not only one, there dies one every 4 seconds.

Resources for children are still considered as a cost; nevertheless, the reality is that they are the best investment for the future.