Rural housing conditions in Latin America often encourage the presence of an insect that transmits Chagas disease, an illness that will kill or shorten the lives of 24 million currently infected individuals. We studied 556 families in rural Venezuela to determine the situational and psychosocial variables that predict the housing conditions leading to colonization by the insect. Then, in an action research program, a community of 23 families participated in a housing improvement program. The data show that both situational and psychosocial factors are important in accounting for participation in the improvement of housing, but that the relationship is complex. In this case, psychosocial changes seem to depend on situational factors, leading us to conclude that, given concrete opportunities, the poor are able to overcome the psychological inertia that results from their extended experience with lack of opportunities.
