ABSTRACT
Twenty percent of the population of Bangladesh live in urban areas. The urban poor are at risk of any number of financial and environmental stresses, which combine to make them vulnerable to the effects of poor nutrition and ill health. In order to target interventions towards the most vulnerable, it is necessary both to be able to identify such households and to understand the interplay of factors that place them at risk. The Dhaka Urban Livelihoods Study is a prospective cohort study of a slum population of around 850 households in Dhaka City. The study integrates a social science analysis of livelihoods with a detailed epidemiological investigation of the interrelationships of the social, economic and material conditions of poverty, nutritional status, and morbidity. The complex database of qualitative and quantitative information will provide detailed profiles of vulnerable households and identification of the factors that place them at risk.
