Health Knowledge And Belief Systems in Africa

by Falola, Toyin; Heaton, Matthew

• ISBN13: 9781594602436
• ISBN10: 1594602433
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2008-01-01
• Publisher: Carolina Academic Press

Summary

Health care in sub-Saharan Africa is and will continue to be an issue of utmost importance in the twenty-first century. As the HIV/AIDS pandemic ravages the continent, the stakes heighten not only to provide effective and efficient health care to African communities, but also to disseminate knowledge about health-seeking behavior and to instill belief among people in the possibility of leading a healthy existence. Health Knowledge and Belief Systems in Africa raises questions and offers analysis on many issues related to how health and illness are understood by communities in Africa, as well as how health knowledge and beliefs are disseminated and utilized to provide health services to African populations. The chapters in this book derive from many different disciplinary approaches and cover regions across sub-Saharan Africa, thus offering a holistic glimpse at the knowledge and belief systems functioning in Africa and the ways that these systems contribute to health care access and delivery in the world's most endangered continent.

Author Biography

Toyin Falola is the Frances Higginbotham Nalle Centennial Professor in History at the University of Texas at Austin as well as a University Distinguished Teaching Professor. Matthew Heaton is an Instructor of African History and World History at Southwestern University and a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of History at the University of Texas at Austin.

Table of Contents

Overview - Investigating Health Knowledge and Beliefs
Introduction - Health Knowledge and Belief Systems in Africa	p. 3
Religion and Belief Systems
Examining the Role of Language in Healing: Comparison of Two Therapeutic Interventions for Spirit Possession	p. 33
The Relevance of Worldview Interpretation to Health Care in South Africa	p. 55
Fulani Treatment Decisions	p. 67
Weapons of Faith in a World of Illness: Zionist Prophet-Healers and HIV/AIDS in Rural KwaZulu-Natal	p. 83
The President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, and Community Beliefs	p. 107
"Wisdom That Grows and Knowledge That Flies": Negotiating Translocal Knowledge and Health Development in Senegal	p. 137
Recuperating Traditional Pharmacology and Healing among the Abaluyia of Western Kenya	p. 149
The Spiritual Basis of Health and Illness in Africa	p. 171
Politics, Policies and Ethics
Commemoration and Narratives of Community Healing: Ten Years after the Rwandan Genocide	p. 183
Ethical Issues in Health-Care Practice and Research in Sub-Saharan Africa	p. 205
Vaccinations in Niger: Perceptions, Beliefs, and Ethical Issues of International Health Initiatives	p. 213
Migration, Mortality and Measurements: A Reassessment of the Historiographical Use of "Relocation Costs," with Attention to the Office du Niger, Soudan Francais (Mali), 1925-1945	p. 225
The Influence of Ideologies on Health Care in South Africa	p. 239
Total Quality Management (TQM) and the Health-Care Delivery System in Africa	p. 249
"Multiracial Partnership" and African Health Care in the Central African Federation: 1953-1963	p. 261
Psychology and Orthotics/Prosthetics in South Africa	p. 277
Rethinking Security Threats in Africa: Changing Patterns of Social Relations and Insecurity	p. 289
On the Poverty of Health Politics in Africa: Are Governments Doing Enough?	p. 299
Hiv/Aids
Understanding AIDS in Public Lives: Luambo Makiadi and Sony Labou Tansi	p. 315
The Acute AIDS Abdomen: A Prospective Clinical and Pathological Study	p. 333
AIDS-Induced Funeral-Culture Changes in Malawi	p. 339
A Holistic Approach in Managing HIV/AIDS Policy in South Africa	p. 343
Indigenous Plants As Complementary Immunomodulators in HIV/AIDS Patients	p. 355
Migration and HIV/AIDS in Sub-Saharan Africa	p. 361
Media and Literature
Representations of African Healers in the Popular Print Media: Inquiries into South African Understandings of Health and Popular Culture in the 1970s and 1980s	p. 385
Trauma, Ngoma, and the Arts: Possibilities for Healing	p. 411
Genocide and HIV/AIDS in Gil Courtemanche's A Sunday at the Pool in Kigali	p. 425
"If We Have Something to Tell God, We Tell It to the Wind": A Linguistic and Discursive Analysis of Akan Therapeutic Discourse	p. 435
"No Short Cuts": Landmines, HIV/Aids and Africa's New Generation	p. 461
The Impact of Theater/Drama on HIV/AIDS Education in Southern Africa	p. 469
The Mad Mother and Her Children: A Psychological Reading of Three Films by Jean-Marie Teno	p. 481
Information Technology and Health
The Impact of Information Technology on Health Information Access in Sub-Saharan Africa	p. 497
The Use of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) in Supporting and Enriching Health Programs	p. 509
Index	p. 523
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