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Search within Central and East Africa, Health, wellbeing and care,
147 results found
Research paper
Why local concepts matter: Using cultural expressions of distress to explore the construct validity of research instruments to measure mental health problems among Congolese women in Nyarugusu refugee camp
This mixed-methods study presents an innovative additional method for assessing the local “cultural fit” of globally used tools for measuring mental health in cross-cultural research.
Research paper
Mixed-methods findings from the Ngutulu Kagwero (agents of change) participatory comic pilot study on post-rape clinical care and sexual violence prevention with refugee youth in a humanitarian setting in Uganda
There is a dearth of evidence-based post-rape clinical care interventions tailored for refugee adolescents and youth in low-income humanitarian settings. Comics, a low-cost, low-literacy and youth-friendly method, integrate visual images with text to spark emotion and share health-promoting information.
Research paper
Reproductive materialism and justice for women with abortion care needs in Uganda.
While reproductive health justice is often assumed to be inherent in reproductive health interventions, the nature of injustices, and the reasons for and mechanisms of concealment, are often unclear. In this article, we draw on an ethnography of priority setting…
Research paper
Becoming Secondary Survivors: Exploring the Effects of Conflict-Related Sexual Violence on the Health and Well-Being of Families in Northern Uganda
The enduring consequences of conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV) and its catastrophic effects on the health and well-being of survivors has been well documented. However, there is a dearth of evidence on the impact of CRSV on families of survivors who…
Research paper
The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on healthcare access and utilisation in South Sudan: a cross-sectional mixed methods study
Indirect effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on communities in fragile and conflict-affected settings may be severe due to reduced access and use of healthcare, as happened during the 2015 Ebola Virus Disease outbreak. Achieving a balance between short-term emergency response…
Research paper
Help-seeking and challenges faced by transwomen following exposure to gender-based violence; a qualitative study in the Greater Kampala Metropolitan Area, Uganda
The high prevalence of gender-based violence (GBV) among transwomen is a human rights and public health challenge. Nonetheless, there is limited evidence of sources of GBV support services and the challenges faced by transwomen while help-seeking, especially in transphobic settings…
Research paper
Addressing the Syndemics of HIV, Mental Health, and COVID-19 Using the Health and Human Rights Framework among Youth Living with HIV, in Uganda: an Interpretive Phenomenological Study
Stigma and discrimination negatively impact the prevention, treatment, and care of HIV. The COVID-19 pandemic increased this complexity and created a cluster of synergistic health contexts, wherein the physiological aspects of HIV and the social and environmental conditions increased the…
Research paper
Health Care Workers’ Experiences, Challenges of Obstetric Referral Processes and Self-Reported Solutions in South Western Uganda: Mixed Methods Study
This study described the profile of emergency obstetric referrals, challenges faced in implementation of obstetric referral processes and explored self-reported solutions by health workers.
Research paper
How social norms contribute to physical violence among ever-partnered women in Uganda: A qualitative study
This paper contributes to the literature that studies how social norms sustain undesirable behavior. It establishes how norms contribute to intimate partner physical violence against women. First, norms organize physical violence as a domestic and private matter. Second, they organize…
Research paper
Dramatic effects of COVID-19 public health measures and mass reverse migration on youth sexual and reproductive health in rural Uganda
Youth (aged 10 to 24 years) comprise nearly one-third of Uganda’s population and often face challenges accessing sexual and reproductive health (SRH) services, with a disproportionately high incidence of negative SRH outcomes. Responding to COVID-19, Uganda implemented strict public health…
Research paper
The enduring consequences of conflict-related sexual violence: a qualitative study of women survivors in northern Uganda
One in three women in northern Uganda report having suffered from conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV), including forced marriage and rape. Understanding women’s perceptions of and experiences with CRSV, especially related to the persistent health and social challenges they continue to…
Research paper
Human African trypanosomiasis (HAT) in the Republic of Congo: why the Congolese population is reluctant to screening?
Human African trypanosomiasis (HAT) is a neglected tropical infection, and surveillance of the disease relies on community participation in screening. This study aimed to identify the main factors associated with low community uptake of HAT screening in endemic districts in…
Research paper
The social dimensions of community delivery of intermittent preventive treatment of malaria in pregnancy in Madagascar, Mozambique, Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of the Congo
Intermittent preventive treatment in pregnancy with is a key malaria prevention strategy. We conducted an anthropological study to understand the social context of a community based approach to delivering sulphadoxine pyrimethamine (C-IPTp) through community health workers (CHWs) in four countries…
Research paper
Whose voices matter? Using participatory, feminist and anthropological approaches to centre power and positionality in research on gender-based violence in emergencies
This article examines how applying participatory, feminist and anthropological methods in gender-based violence research can hold researchers accountable to both acknowledging and explicitly addressing power disparities.
Research paper
‘There Were Moments We Wished She Could Just Die’: The Highly Gendered Burden of Nodding Syndrome in Northern Uganda
Nodding Syndrome (NS) occurs within a wide spectrum of epilepsies seen in onchocerciasis endemic areas of sub-Saharan Africa. It has debilitating consequences on affected individuals and increases the socio-economic, physical and psychological burden on care-givers and their households, diminishing their…
Research paper
Managing community engagement in research in Uganda: insights from practices in HIV/AIDS research
Community engagement (CE) in research is valuable for instrumental and intrinsic reasons. Despite existing guidance on how to ensure meaningful CE, much of what it takes to achieve this goal differs across settings. Considering the emerging trend towards mandating CE…
Report
Sudan: Update on the humanitarian situation with a focus on the impact on healthcare
This thematic report provides an update on the impact of conflict on Sudan’s healthcare system using a secondary data review of public sources.
Case study
COVID-19 school closures in the DRC: impact on the health, protection and education of children and youth
This report presents an analysis of the impact of school closures as a COVID-19 response measure in the DRC, and is intended to inform evidence-based programming to mitigate the short- and long-term consequences to health, protection, and education of children…
Briefing
Exploring community dynamics around the plague outbreak in Ituri province, DRC
In April 2021, the Social Sciences Analytics Cell (CASS), in collaboration with UNICEF and the Provincial Health Division (DPS) in Bunia conducted exploratory research applying the Integrated Outbreak Analytics (IOA) approach in three health zones affected by a suspected plague…
Research paper
Lives Interrupted: Navigating Hardship During COVID-19 Provides Lessons in Solidarity and Visibility for Mobile Young People in South Africa and Uganda
The COVID-19 pandemic has upended assumptions about livelihood security. The authors examine data from young women and men in South Africa and young female sex workers in Uganda to explore the inequalities and hardships experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic and…
Research paper
Maternal Vaccination in Uganda: Exploring Pregnant Women, Community Leaders and Healthcare Workers’ Perceptions
This research used qualitative methods to explore pregnant women, community leaders, healthcare workers, and programme managers’ perceptions of maternal vaccination in Kampala, Uganda. The authors found that public health messaging should target all community members, including partners and parents of…
Research paper
A qualitative study of the development and utilization of health facility-based immunization microplans in Uganda
In 2006, Uganda adopted the Reaching Every District strategy with the goal of attaining at least 80% coverage for routine immunizations in every district. The development and utilization of health facility/district immunization microplans is the key to the strategy. A…
Research paper
Provider love in an informal settlement: Men’s relationships with providing women and implications for HIV in Kampala, Uganda
This study reports on data from an ethnography (2016–2019) with low-income men in urban Uganda. This study uses gender and power theory to describe how men’s relationships with female sex workers in an informal settlement in urban Kampala, Uganda are…
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…
Research paper
Antibiotic stories: a mixed-methods, multi-country analysis of household antibiotic use in Malawi, Uganda and Zimbabwe
As concerns about the prevalence of infections that are resistant to available antibiotics increase, attention has turned toward the use of these medicines both within and outside of formal healthcare settings. This article analyses findings from mixed-methods anthropological studies of…
Research paper
Antibiotic ‘entanglements’: health, labour and everyday life in an urban informal settlement in Kampala, Uganda
Our ethnographic research documents the ways that antibiotics have become a key part of everyday life for precariously employed urban day-wage workers living in a large informal settlement in Kampala, Uganda. We found that for many people, their daily work…
Research paper
The Ambiguity Imperative: “Success” in a Maternal Health Program in Uganda
Global health programs are compelled to demonstrate impact on their target populations. We study an example of social franchising – a popular healthcare delivery model in low/middle-income countries – in the Ugandan private maternal health sector. The discrepancies between the…
Research paper
Unsafe “crossover-use” of chloramphenicol in Uganda: importance of a One Health approach in antimicrobial resistance policy and regulatory action
Since the introduction of antibiotics into mainstream health care, resistance to these drugs has become increasingly widespread. Policy decisions to mitigate the development of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) are hampered by a lack of surveillance data on antibiotic availability and use…
Research paper
Knowledge and Perceptions on Menstrual Hygiene Management Among School-Going Adolescent Girls in South Sudan
This article draws on grounded theory and ethnographic fieldwork approaches and applies a political ecology of adolescent health (PEAH) framework to examine how school-going adolescent girls and their communities perceive sexual and reproductive health education (SRHE) and menstrual hygiene management…
Research paper
Authority that is customary: Kitawala, customary chiefs, and the plurality of power in Congolese history
This paper uses the history of the religious/healing movement Kitawala in the Democratic Republic of Congo as a lens to explore the relationship between forms of state-sanctioned “customary” authority and alternative nodes of “authority that is customary.” Focusing on three…
Research paper
Measuring health system resilience in a highly fragile nation during protracted conflict: South Sudan 2011–15
Complementing real-time data with survey data collected in South Sudan at independence (2011) and following 2 years of protracted conflict (2015), this study constructed and then compared a resilience index and stress index. Overall maternal, neonatal and child health coverage…
Research paper
Health services for women, children and adolescents in conflict affected settings: experience from North and South Kivu, Democratic Republic of Congo
The humanitarian response to the DRC’s Ebola health emergency between 2018-20 was met with popular resistance by local populations, drawing attention to the perceived failures of humanitarian responses in the country over decades. To declare Ebola a health disaster was…
Research paper
Sexual health of adolescent girls and young women in Central Uganda: exploring perceived coercive aspects of transactional sex
Adolescent girls and young women (AGYW) in Uganda are at risk of early sexual debut, unwanted pregnancy, violence, and disproportionally high HIV infection rates, driven in part by transactional sex. This paper examines the extent to which AGYW’s participation in…
Research paper
Taking Opportunities, Taking Medicines: Antibiotic Use in Rural Eastern Uganda
The ways in which dimensions of health and healthcare intersect with economics and politics in particular contexts requires close attention. In this article we connect concerns about antibiotic overuse in Uganda to the social milieu created through policies that follow…
Research paper
Histories of Antibiotics: A One Health account of the arrival of antimicrobial drugs to Zimbabwe, Malawi and Uganda. Report for the Improving Human Health Flagship Initiative, Agriculture for Nutrition and Health research programme, CGIAR
The overall aim of this short project is to uncover some of the socio-historical roots of antibiotic use in humans and non-humans outside of the European and American histories that are now well understood. We provide an historical account of…
Book chapter
Legacies of Violence: The Communicability of Spirits and Trauma in Northern Uganda
How may the spread of the biomedical concept ‘trauma’ as well as cen spirits in Northern Uganda be understood as part of syndemic processes of situated concerned responses to violence? In this chapter, we examine legacies of mass violence for…
