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212 results found
Research paper
Relational Factors and HIV Testing Practices: Qualitative Insights from Urban Refugee Youth in Kampala, Uganda
This paper explores perspectives, experiences, and preferences for social support in HIV testing among refugee youth aged 16–24 in Kampala, Uganda.
Research paper
Task shifting for tuberculosis control: A qualitative study of community-based directly observed therapy in urban Uganda
This qualitative study of task shifting examined tuberculosis (TB) therapy under modified community-based directly observed treatment short-course (CB-DOTS) in Kampala, Uganda. The authors recommend an intervention evaluating this modified DOTS strategy on a larger scale in TB high-burden, resource-poor urban…
Research paper
Beyond solidarity and mutual aid: Tension and conflict in burial groups in rural Uganda
Drawing from ethnographic data collected between 2012 and 2014 and January and June 2018 in Luwero district, Uganda, this article questions the romanticised depiction of burial groups as a means of enhancing social support, a sense of solidarity and mutual…
Research paper
National policy development for cotrimoxazole prophylaxis in Malawi, Uganda and Zambia: the relationship between Context, Evidence and Links
Several frameworks exist to analyse factors which influence the uptake of evidence into policy processes in resource poor settings, yet empirical analyses of health policy making in these settings are relatively rare. National policy making for cotrimoxazole preventive therapy in…
Research paper
Introducing rapid diagnostic tests for malaria into registered drug shops in Uganda: lessons learned and policy implications
Malaria is a major public health problem in Uganda. Current policy recommends introduction of rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs) to facilitate effective case management. However, provision of RDTs in drug shops raises new issues, such as adherence to RDTs results, management…
Research paper
Data value and care value in the practice of health systems: A case study in Uganda
In anthropology, interest in how values are created, maintained and changed has been reinvigorated. We interrogate concerns about relationships between data collection and patient care by following a pilot study in Kayunga, Uganda aimed at improving the collection of health…
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
Life in the buffer zone: Social relations and surplus health workers in Uganda’s medicines retail sector
Despite their critical role, medicine sellers are often excluded from health systems and policy research. In this paper, we ask ‘what happens to the conceptualisations of a health system when medicine sellers and their practices are foregrounded in research?’ We…
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…
Research paper
Use of Services among Female Sex Workers Receiving a Comprehensive HIV Enhanced Prevention Intervention in Kampala, Uganda: A Cross-sectional Study
We estimated the prevalence and factors associated with the use of a dedicated HIV prevention, care, and treatment service for female sex workers (FSWs) in Kampala, Uganda. Between October 2017 to January 2018, we conducted a cross-sectional study among FSWs…
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
Introducing malaria rapid diagnostic tests at registered drug shops in Uganda: Limitations of diagnostic testing in the reality of diagnosis
In Uganda, around two thirds of medicines are procured from the private sector, mostly from drug shops. The introduction of malaria rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs) at drug shops therefore has the potential to make a significant contribution to targeting antimalarial…
Research paper
Aspirations for quality health care in Uganda: How do we get there?
Despite significant investments and reforms, health care remains poor for many in Africa. To design an intervention to improve access and quality of health care at health facilities in eastern Uganda, we aimed to understand local priorities for qualities in…
Research paper
‘It puts life in us and we feel big’: shifts in the local health care system during the introduction of rapid diagnostic tests for malaria into drug shops in Uganda
This paper is an analysis of the social interaction between drug sellers, their clients and local health care workers within a medical trial that introduced rapid diagnostic tests for malaria into private sector drug shops in Mukono District, Uganda. It…
Research paper
Challenging logics of complex intervention trials: community perspectives of a health care improvement intervention in rural Uganda
Health systems in many African countries are failing to provide populations with access to good quality health care. The PRIME trial in Tororo, rural Uganda, designed and tested an intervention to improve care at health centres, with the aim of…
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…
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
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 Arrivals in Africa: A Case Study of Yaws and Syphilis in Malawi, Zimbabwe and Uganda
The significance of the ways in which antibiotics co-constituted colonial regimes has not been systematically described. Through a case study of yaws and syphilis, this article traces arrivals of antibiotics in Malawi, Zimbabwe, and Uganda. We draw attention to the…
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
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…
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…
Research paper
Building the nation’s body: The contested role of abortion and family planning in postwar south Sudan
This paper offers an ethnographic analysis of public health policies and interventions targeting unwanted pregnancy (family planning and abortion) in contemporary South Sudan as part of wider ‘nation-building’ after war, understood as a process of collective identity formation which projects…
Research paper
Barriers to Institutional Childbirth in Rumbek North County, South Sudan: A Qualitative Study
South Sudan has one of the world’s poorest health indicators due to a fragile health system and a combination of socio-cultural, economic and political factors. This paper reports on a study conducted to identify barriers to utilisation of institutional childbirth…
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…
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…
Research paper
Too afraid to go: fears of dignity violations as reasons for non-use of maternal health services in South Sudan
South Sudan has one of the worst health and maternal health situations in the world. While maternal health services at primary care level are not well developed, even where they exist, many women do not use them. Developing location specific…
Research paper
Traditional healers for HIV/AIDS prevention and family planning, Kiboga District, Uganda: evaluation of a program to improve practices
South Sudan has one of the worst health and maternal health situations in the world. While maternal health services at primary care level are not well developed, even where they exist, many women do not use them. Developing location specific…
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.…
Research paper
When community reintegration is not the best option: interethnic violence and the trauma of parental loss in South Sudan
Challenging the received wisdom that community reintegration is always better than institutional provision, this case study argues that institutional care of orphans should not always be considered only as a last resort but may offer greater care and protection than…
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
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…
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…
Research paper
Providing health services during a civil war: the experience of a garrison town in South Sudan
This article explores the social and political dynamics of health service provision in and around an important garrison town in South Sudan, during the second Sudanese civil war (1983–2005). Drawing on semi-structured interviews, informal conversations and focus group discussions, the…
Blog
Social media and trust in strangers have grown Uganda’s market for COVID-19 treatments
The COVID-19 pandemic in Uganda has coincided with an ‘epidemic’ of misinformation, spread in part through social media platforms such as WhatsApp. Against a backdrop of unaffordable formal healthcare, this has grown the market for herbal and traditional treatments, with…
Research paper
Male partners of female sex workers: The intersectional risk environment of HIV/AIDS in a Kampala informal settlement
This study examined the context and drivers of HIV risk and vulnerability among male partners of female sex workers in Kampala, Uganda, using an “intersectional risk environment” framework.
