Alcohol Consumption: Measuring the Risk of Household Poverty (Case of the Urban District of Toamasina - Madagascar)

Abstract

The individual consumer of alcohol, often the household head, loses part of his income to buy alcohol. Excessive consumption of alcohol causes social costs (support costs of illness, family trauma, car accident, job loss and productivity etc.). Its effects on the health of the individual drinker are asymptomatic. If it is the case of a disease of alcoholism, the household must bear the costs of care, and those whose low-income or average income is below the permanent poverty, are confronted with a financial difficulty, drawing their savings and even selling their property to address this shortfall. The accumulation of costs caused by alcohol consumption is then a catastrophic expense for the household. The aim of the study is to show to what point we can calculate the risk of household poverty with an alcoholic individual head of household between the two periods: "disease free" and "appearance of the disease of alcoholism" Having obtained the value of the poverty line, a mathematical modeling of the expense of alcohol was made to derive an orientation axis to minimize the risk of poverty.