title: Health status of hostel dwellers. Part I. Introduction, methodology and response rates.
abstract: A health status survey (October-November 1987) was carried out among the residents of the urban migrant council-built hostels outside Cape Town at Langa, Nyanga and Guguletu, at their request. The project is introduced and the basis for the interpretation of the findings is provided. Migrant labour and the resultant material and physical impoverishment provide the social context for this study. The hostel dwellers as a migrant or mobile population presented certain research challenges. The working concepts, including the notion of the 'bedhold', employed in this study to address the mobility of the population are outlined. the methodology describes how the range of criteria selected to measure health status was investigated in a single survey. The response rates suggest that surveys carried out in the urban location of a migrant labour situation do not access the poor in the broader migrant labour situation. Findings are treated with caution for what they infer for the broader migrant population.
authors.affiliation: Department of Social Anthropology, University of Cape Town.
authors.forename: M A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Ramphele
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Heap
mesh_terms: D003625:Data Collection / Q000379:methods; D006304:Health Status; D006306:Health Surveys; D006798:Housing; D008722:Methods; D012494:Sampling Studies; D013019:South Africa; D014171:Transients and Migrants; D014505:Urban Population