At Elucid, we love sharing about our work: how we improve access to healthcare, cut down those out-of-pocket medical expenses, and help farming communities bounce back from health challenges. But have you ever wondered what it actually looks like when someone gets treated in one of our programs? What kinds of illnesses and diseases do we see most often?

Well, we got curious about this too! So we dug into our data and identified the top 3 most commonly treated conditions across all our programs. What are they, and why do they matter so much? That’s exactly what we’re exploring in this blog. Join us for a peek behind the scenes of healthcare in farming communities!

If you’ve followed our work, this probably won’t surprise you: malaria consistently ranks as one of the most common diseases treated across all our programs.

The WHO defines malaria as “a life-threatening disease spread to humans by some types of mosquitoes.” And life-threatening it certainly can be. Globally, the disease burden is growing – with nearly 263 million cases reported in 2023. Africa, where the majority of our health programs operate, carries the heaviest burden.

Here’s what makes this especially heartbreaking: malaria is entirely treatable and preventable. Every single death from malaria could have been avoided with proper care.

That’s exactly where our programs make a difference. We ensure farming communities can access timely treatment for malaria, preventing unnecessary deaths that would otherwise devastate families and weaken entire communities.

Anaemia appears just as frequently in our treatment records. It’s “a condition in which the number of red blood cells or the haemoglobin concentration within them is lower than normal.” Without sufficient haemoglobin to carry oxygen, the body’s tissues simply can’t function properly.

Children are particularly vulnerable to anaemia, and in pregnancy, it is associated with poorer maternal and birth outcomes. That’s an important part of our approach: we don’t just cover farmers themselves – our programs extend to their entire households. When a farmer’s child develops anaemia, that family can get the care they need without financial strain.

This comprehensive approach does double duty: it improves health outcomes for the most vulnerable family members while allowing farmers to maintain their productivity instead of taking time away to care for sick children.

Hypertension – commonly known as high blood pressure – might not cause immediate symptoms, but its long-term effects can be devastating. Defined as blood pressure of 140/90 mmHg or higher, hypertension significantly increases the risk of serious complications including heart attacks, heart failure, and arrhythmias.

Many people effectively manage hypertension with medications like ACE inhibitors and ARBs. Through our health programs, small-scale producers and farmers gain access to these essential treatments, dramatically reducing their risk of life-altering cardiovascular events and helping them remain active, productive members of their communities.

For many of us reading this blog, these three conditions might not seem particularly alarming. We take malaria prophylaxis before tropical vacations, add iron supplements to our shopping carts when needed, and know we can get hypertension medication with a quick doctor’s visit. These solutions are literally at our fingertips.

But for the farming communities we serve, the reality is starkly different. A farmer’s illness doesn’t just affect their health – it threatens their entire family’s livelihood. When the primary income earner can’t work, everyone suffers. When medical expenses must be paid out-of-pocket, families can be financially devastated.

What for us might be a minor inconvenience can mean the difference between prosperity and poverty, sometimes even life and death, for many farmers in our programs.

This is why we’re so proud of the work we do at Elucid. Every malaria treatment, every anaemia intervention, every hypertension medication we help provide doesn’t just improve health outcomes – it helps preserve livelihoods, protects families, and strengthens entire communities.

By making health a central part of sustainability, we’re ensuring that farmers can continue producing the crops we all depend on while building better lives for themselves and their families.