Socio-Economic Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic in Haiti: Results of the Haitian Household Survey

The Socio-Economic Impact Assessment (SEIA) is a nationally representative household survey of 87 questions in 11 modules, administered face to face in July 2020 to a random sample of 6,292 households drawn from the IHSI enumeration areas, of which 6,174 agreed to answer. The sampling frame is the master sample IHSI built in 2011 for ECVMAS-2012. The sample divides almost evenly between urban (50.3 percent) and rural (49.7 percent) households, with 23.7 percent in the metropolitan area, and the results are representative nationally but not by department.

On income, 61.7 percent of households had no stable income source even before the pandemic (68.1 percent urban, 55.1 percent rural) and 80 percent lived on less than 20,000 gourdes a month, about US$312 at the time. After COVID-19 reached Haiti, 69 percent reported a fall in monthly income, more in rural areas (79 percent) than urban (60 percent), and just over half of those put the fall at 60 percent or more; households borrowed or ran down savings to cope. On food, 71.1 percent expected not to have enough to eat, while 85.2 percent had already cut the quantity, 82.3 percent the number of meals, and 45.7 percent had gone whole days without eating. On health, 57.4 percent of households could not obtain regular treatment or medicines, citing cost (41.5 percent) and fear of infection (39.2 percent); the treatments most often missed were infant vaccination (14.3 percent) and chronic-disease care (11.8 percent). On schooling, 97.3 percent of households had no access to the online learning the MENFP set up after classes closed. Almost 90 percent of households considered themselves affected and 24.4 percent were optimistic about the country's prospects. The report closes with recommendations on radio and television information campaigns, food assistance, remote schooling, and restoring routine vaccination and chronic-disease treatment.