Health, wellbeing and care

Understandings and experiences of health and wellbeing, care seeking and provision.

Research paper

Reconciling imperatives: Clinical guidelines, antibiotic prescribing and the enactment of good care in lower-level health facilities in Tororo, Uganda.

Faced with the threat of antimicrobial resistance, health workers are urged to reduce unnecessary prescription of antimicrobials. Clinical guidelines are expected to form the basis of prescribing. Emerging through evaluations of best practice, guidelines also create benchmarks to assess practice…
Central and East Africa Hub
Taylor & Francis Online
2022
Thesis

Antibiotics in Society: a multi-sited ethnography in rural and urban Uganda

This thesis employed a multi-sited ethnographic approach in urban and rural settings in Uganda to study the social and economic factors that shape antibiotic use. It found that these included everyday insecurities, availability of resources, and professional and patient expectations…
Central and East Africa Hub
London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
2022
Research paper

“We need good nutrition but we have no money to buy food”: sociocultural context, care experiences, and newborn health in two UNHCR-supported camps in South Sudan

Determinants of newborn health and survival exist across the reproductive life cycle, with many sociocultural and contextual factors influencing outcomes beyond the availability of, and access to, quality health services. To better understand key needs and opportunities to improve newborn…
Central and East Africa Hub
BMC International Health and Human Rights
2018
Research paper

Social norms and family planning decisions in South Sudan

With a maternal mortality ratio of 789 per 100,000 live births, and a contraceptive prevalence rate of 4.7%, South Sudan has one of the worst reproductive health situations in the world. Understanding the social norms around sexuality and reproduction, across…
Central and East Africa Hub
BMC Public Health
Report

“Our Hearts Have Gone Dark”: The Mental Health Impact of South Sudan’s Conflict

This report by Amnesty International describes the serious and significant mental health impact of South Sudan’s conflict to highlight the urgency for more attention and resources to improve the availability, accessibility, and quality of mental health services in the country.…
Central and East Africa Hub
Amnesty International Ltd
2016
Research paper

Schistosomiasis messaging in endemic communities: Lessons and implications for interventions from rural Uganda, a rapid ethnographic assessment study

This study used a rapid ethnographic assessment to investigate sources, nature and perception of schistosomiasis-related health information in three lake-shore communities in Eastern Uganda. Through transect walks, observations, interviews and focus groups, the authors found that although the main source…
Central and East Africa Hub
PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases
2021
Research paper

Poisoning at the periphery: allocating responsibility across the Uganda/South Sudan borderlands

This paper presents ethnographic evidence from three sites across the Uganda/South Sudan borderlands. At each location, procedures to identify alleged poisoners were documented. Novel voting processes were initiated by hybrid local authorities. Addressing widespread anxiety about proximate wrong-doing seemed to…
Central and East Africa Hub
Taylor & Francis Online
2017
Research paper

Spatial accessibility to basic public health services in South Sudan

This article develops a GIS model of spatial health access metrics nationally and sub-nationally in South Sudan. Using publicly available data on health facilities, population, land cover and use, road networks and elevation, the authors found that in 2016 only…
Central and East Africa Hub
PAGEPress
2017
Research paper

Dynamics of Care, Situations of Choice: HIV Tests in Times of ART

In the 1990s, African AIDS programs followed a voluntary counseling and testing (VCT) approach to HIV testing. In the wake of large scale AIDS treatment programs, policymakers opted for routine provider-initiated testing (PITC) with less emphasis on counseling, which led…
Central and East Africa Hub
Medical Anthropology
2011
Research paper

Routines, Hope, and Antiretroviral Treatment among Men and Women in Uganda

Antiretroviral treatment programs, despite biomedical emphases, require social understanding and transformations to be successful. In this article, the authors draw from a qualitative study of HIV treatment seeking to examine the drug-taking routines and health-related subjectivities of men and women…
Central and East Africa Hub
Medical Anthropology
2016
Research paper

Challenging the Paradigm: Anthropological Perspectives on HIV as a Chronic Disease

Recently HIV has been framed as a ‘manageable’ chronic disease in contexts in which access to effective care is reliable. The chronic disease paradigm emphasizes self-care, biomedical disease management, social normalization, and uncertainty. Data from a longitudinal study of patients…
Central and East Africa Hub
Medical Anthropology
2014
Research paper

“If he could speak, he would be able to point out who does those things to him”: Experiences of violence and access to child protection among children with disabilities in Uganda and Malawi

While child protection mechanisms to prevent and respond to violence are slowly operationalised in low- and- middle-income countries, little is known about whether existing mechanisms are disability-inclusive. The aim of this study, which took place in Malawi and Kamuli district…
Central and East Africa Hub
PLoS ONE
2017
Research paper

“Eat and you will be eaten”: a qualitative study exploring costs and benefits of age-disparate sexual relationships in Tanzania and Uganda: implications for girls’ sexual and reproductive health interventions

Age-disparate sex is associated with increased HIV risk among adolescent girls and young women (AGYW) in sub-Saharan Africa. However, little has been done to understand the dynamics of such relationships from the perspectives of either AGYW or older men, and…
Central and East Africa Hub
Reproductive Health
2018
Research paper

Community perspectives on the extent to which transactional sex is viewed as sexual exploitation in Central Uganda

Sexual exploitation violates children’s rights and exposes them to harm, but there exist differences in views of behaviour that is considered sexually exploitative, including transactional sex. This paper explores community perspectives on transactional sex and exploitation in two communities in…
Central and East Africa Hub
BMC International Health and Human Rights
2017
Research paper

“We saw that jealousy can also bring violence”: A qualitative exploration of the intersections between jealousy, infidelity and intimate partner violence in Rwanda and Uganda

Efforts to prevent intimate partner violence (IPV) have been informed by emerging research on common triggers of IPV and the importance of engaging with couple dynamics. This paper reports on secondary data analysis from the qualitative evaluations of the SASA!…
Central and East Africa Hub
Science Direct
2022
Research paper

A qualitative study exploring parent–daughter approaches for communicating about sex and transactional sex in Central Uganda: Implications for comprehensive sexuality education interventions

Ugandan adolescent girls and young women are disproportionately impacted by human immunodeficiency virus, and this is largely driven by their engagement in transactional sex. Globally, parent–daughter communication about sex is associated with increased contraceptive use and delayed/decreased sexual activity, but…
Central and East Africa Hub
Wiley Online Library
2022
Briefing

Cross-Border Dynamics and Healthcare in West Nile, Uganda

Against the backdrop of on-going preparedness work in Uganda as related to the outbreak of Ebola in DRC, this brief summarises key considerations concerning cross-border dynamics and health structures and behaviours in the West Nile sub-region of north-west Uganda. It…
Central and East Africa Hub
Institute of Development Studies
2019
Research paper

“There are many fevers”: Communities’ perception and management of Febrile illness and its relationship with human animal interactions in South-Western Uganda

Diagnosing the causative agent of febrile illness in resource-limited countries is a challenge in part due to lack of adequate diagnostic infrastructure to confirm cause of infection. Most febrile illnesses (>60%) are non-malarial, with a significant proportion being zoonotic and…
Central and East Africa Hub
PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases
2022
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