One Illness Away: Why People Become Poor and How They Escape Poverty

by Anirudh Krishna

Why does poverty persist? A critical, but so far ignored, part of the answer lies in the fact that poverty is regularly created. Large numbers of people are escaping poverty, but large numbers are concurrently falling into chronic poverty.

This book presents the first large-scale examination of the reasons why people fall into poverty and how they escape it in diverse contexts. Drawing upon personal interviews with 35,000 households in different parts of India, Kenya, Uganda, Peru, and the United States, it takes you on an illustrative journey, filled with facts, analyses, and the life stories of people who fell into abject poverty and others who managed to escape their seemingly predetermined fates. Letting a farmhand's son or daughter remain a farmhand, even though she or he is potentially the next Einstein, is a tragedy that poor people witness time after time. Remedying this situation is crucial for making poverty history. This book addresses how equal opportunity can be promoted and how slum-born millionaires can arise in reality. Speaking to Barack Obama's message for more effective health care, One Illness Away feeds directly into current public debates. Learning from thousands of individual experiences, this book
presents a clear agenda for action and provides more effective ways of keeping people out of micro poverty traps.

Genres: Poverty, Nonfiction, Health

256 pages, Hardcover

First published August 26, 2010

Reviews

[George Klima · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is a huge disappointment.

The central idea is so evocative: that many poor people are only one illness away from utter destitution. And further, that health services can prevent this from happening. She also talks about the enormous difficulty of escaping from utter destitution.

However, the book is highly repetitive. We read the same ideas over and over. The evidence presented consists of anecdotes and opinions, only occasionally based on small studies.

I don't know who this book is for but it was sure not for me.

[Jenna Garrett · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really admire Krishna's work but did not enjoy the book. He has developed an incredible methodology for studying poverty qualitatively over time, but the book was a bit repetitive and flat for me.

[Petr Šídlo · Rating 3 out of 5]

The message of the book is important and should be shared more and the book intro chapter is almost sufficient for this purpose. Further chapters (with the exception of the chapter about solution) are so repetitive that it made me almost mad on many places where I was hoping the author would finally arrive to some new insight but we would get again the same generic “poverty is not the stock but also inflow and outflow”. I understand it is important considering that it is not yet measured by government agencies, but comparing that any business customer retention strategies - this should be the initial stepping stone not something to repeat several times in each chapter to a point of obsession.

The depth and breath of authors experience is admirable and would deserve better information architecture of this book - depending on the goal, either make it much shorter and easier to read or provide substantially more insight within each chapter than what was already provided … I would especially love more real life stories from the research as they are much more interesting to read and bring human emotions to the reading.

[Tomas Chaigneau · Rating 4 out of 5]

I agree with some past reviews,
That this book is quite repetitive at times. On the contrary however, I enjoyed this. A book with an important message but is incredibly easy to read and understand. Certain messages and concepts are repackaged and reexplained in various ways and highlighted with different examples, it allows you the time to think, challenge some of the book's ideas.
I would have liked a little more discussion on the methodology itself. Most of the book is an argument for its use, and there is little about the detail of carrying it out. The appendix was of little use in that respect.

Overall I believe that I will use many of the thoughts and ideas from this book as I continue to research the links between poverty and wellbeing.

[Maggie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very interesting study of the phenomenon of poverty and how it differs in different countries. The theme that really struck me was that a series of random, unfortunate events such as illness and high healthcare costs could pull so many families into poverty. And yet, efforts to move out of poverty through education or investment strategies hardly did much. Sometimes it would lift them up but never to the shining house on a hill. But what if the next Einstein were to grow up in an impoverished town? His talents and potential would go unrealized. Good read with several case studies detailing why poverty happens, how people may escape it, and what can be done.