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Exceptional suffering? Enumeration and vernacular accounting in the HIV-positive experience.
Drawing on 17 months of ethnographic fieldwork in Freetown, Sierra Leone, I highlight the recursive relationship between Sierra Leone as an exemplary setting and HIV as an exceptional disease. Through this relationship, I examine how HIV-positive individuals rely on both…
Evidence review
Vulnerable Groups in Burma and Access to Services
This report focuses on vulnerable groups in Burma and access to basic services. The first part of the report outlines groups considered to be vulnerable and marginalised. These include minority ethnic groups (such as the Chin, Kachin, Karen, Karenni, Mon,…
Evidence review
Developing, Implementing and Evaluating the SOFIE Model: Supporting Increased Educational Access for Vulnerable Pupils in Malawi
Against the context of underlying poverty, HIV/AIDS and an over-stretched and underresourced education system, many children in Malawi have reduced and sporadic access to schooling and are at risk of permanent dropout. Evidence from the sub-Saharan Africa(SSA) region suggests that…
Background report
Changing Understandings of HIV and AIDS through Treatment Interactions
The problem of HIV internationally has many wide ranging impacts on people, communities and countries’ development. In the last decade antiretroviral (ARV) treatment has emerged as the major scientific-technical solution, albeit a costly one. Access to ARV treatment is of…
Evidence review
HIV/AIDS, Forests and Futures in sub-Saharan Africa
Throughout sub-Saharan Africa, the human immunodeficiency virus/acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) pandemic is having devastating and tragic social, economic, and political impacts. HIV/AIDS is both a health issue and a development problem, with complex links to rural livelihoods, human capacity, and…
Evidence review
Public Health Risk Assessment and Interventions – The Horn of Africa: Drought and Famine Crisis
The purpose of this public health risk assessment is to provide health professionals in United Nations agencies, nongovernmental organizations, international and local organizations, donor agencies and local authorities, who are currently working with populations affected by the emergency in the…
Background report
HIV/AIDS, Forests and Futures in sub-Saharan Africa
Throughout Sub-Saharan Africa, the human immunodeficiency virus/acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) pandemic is having devastating and tragic social, economic, and political impacts. HIV/AIDS is both a health issue and a development problem, with complex links to rural livelihoods, human capacity, and…
Background report
The Case of Cholera Preparedness, Response and Prevention in the SADC Region: A Need for Proactive and Multi-Level Communication and Co-ordination
In this paper the authors seek to identify the most appropriate model for a regional co-ordination mechanism for cholera preparedness, response and prevention. The qualitative mixed-method data collection approach that was followed revealed the need for alternative solutions, including a…
Evidence review
An Analysis of Migration Health in Kenya
An Analysis of Migration Health in Kenya was commissioned by theMinistry of Public Health and Sanitation (MoPHS) and the InternationalOrganization for Migration (IOM) to provide an overview of the issue of migration health in Kenya. Information was derived from an…
Background report
Climate Change and Health across Africa: Issues and Options
This working paper lays out the current state of knowledge regarding direct and indirect impacts of environmental factors on health across Africa. While there are many uncertainties in magnitudes of climate change, particularly with timing, the existing literature makes interesting…
Background report
A Public Health Approach to the Impact of Climate Change on Health in Southern Africa – Identifying Priority Modifiable Risks
Anthropogenic climate change and anticipated adverse effects on human health as outlined by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) are taken as givens. A conceptual model for thinking about the spectrum of climate-related health risks ranging from distal and…
Briefing
Famine in Somalia: Causes and Solutions
The UN announcement of famine in Somalia is both a wake-up call to the scale of this disaster, and a wake-up call to the solutions needed to limit death-from-hunger now and in the future. So, what is famine and how…
Evidence review
Interrelationships among Health, Environment Quality, and Economic Activity. What Consequences for Economic Convergence?
This paper examines the link between health indicators, environmental variables, and economic development, and the consequences of this relationship on economic convergence. In the early stage of economic development, the gain from income growth could be cancelled or mitigated by…
Evidence review
The Aftermath of Aid: Medical Insecurity in the Northern Somali Region of Ethiopia
This dissertation explores the lasting effects of recurrent temporary medical humanitarian operations through ethnographic research in communities, clinical facilities, nongovernmental aid organizations, and governmental bureaucracies in the northern Somali Region of Ethiopia.
Background report
Knowledge, Attitudes and Practices (KAP) Study to Investigate the Health System of Circonscription Socio-Sanitaire (CSS) Ignié Ngabé, Department of Pool, Republic of Congo
It is important to understand a population’s health behaviours and their underlying determinants such as knowledge, attitudes and beliefs related to health, when we seek to deliver appropriate health care services that may increase health service utilization and ultimately population health.…
Research paper
Doing business out of war. An analysis of the UPDF’s presence in the Democratic Republic of Congo
This paper analyses how Ugandan army commanders have mobilised transborder economic networks to exploit economic opportunities in eastern DRC during the military intervention of the Ugandan People’s Defence Force (UPDF) in Congo’s wars (1996–97; 1998–2003). These networks are the starting…
Research paper
The ‘Other Diseases’ of the Millennium Development Goals: Rhetoric and Reality of Free Drug Distribution to Cure the Poor’s Parasites
A massive programme is now underway to treat the parasites of the poor in Africa via integrated vertical interventions of mass drug administration in endemic areas. The approach has been hailed as remarkably effective, with claims that there is now…
Research paper
Vulnerability of Indigenous Health to Climate Change: A Case Study of Uganda’s Batwa Pygmies
The potential impacts of climate change on human health in sub-Saharan Africa are wide-ranging, complex, and largely adverse. The region’s Indigenous peoples are considered to be at heightened risk given their relatively poor health outcomes, marginal social status, and resource-based…
Background report
‘Land Belongs to the Community’: Demystifying the ‘Global Land Grab’ in Southern Sudan
Sudan is among the global ‘hotspots’ for large-scale land acquisitions. Although most were thought to occur in the country’s north, recent research indicates a surprising number of large-scale land acquisitions have taken place in the South in recent years. Now…
Research paper
Sexual and gender based violence against men in the Democratic Republic of Congo: effects on survivors, their families and the community
Media and service provider reports of sexual and gender based violence (SGBV) perpetrated against men in armed conflicts have increased. However, response to these reports has been limited, as existing evidence and programs have primarily focused on prevention and response…
Research paper
Challenges of controlling sleeping sickness in areas of violent conflict: experience in the Democratic Republic of Congo
Human African trypanosomiasis (HAT), or sleeping sickness, is a fatal neglected tropical disease if left untreated. HAT primarily affects people living in rural sub-Saharan Africa, often in regions afflicted by violent conflict. Screening and treatment of HAT is complex and…
Research paper
‘Instead of Begging, I Farm to Feed My Children’: Urban Agriculture – An Alternative to Copper and Cobalt in Lubumbashi
The collapse of a large mining company in the 1990s forced many unemployed workers in Lubumbashi, DRC to look at alternative means of survival. The post-mine era was characterized by acute economic crisis at a time of rapid population growth…
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…
Research paper
Divisive ‘Commonality’: state and insecurity in the Democratic Republic of Congo
Northern donor policies relating to building a common future and building peaceful states and societies go to the heart of national and international security agendas. This article critiques the concept of commonality between donors and recipients and within recipient countries.…
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
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…
A History of Urban Planning and Infectious Diseases: Colonial Senegal in the Early Twentieth Century
This paper deals with the spatial implications of the French sanitary policies in early colonial urban Senegal. It focuses on the French politics of residential segregation following the outbreak of the bubonic plague in Dakar in 1914, and their precedents…
‘Mobile transmigrants’ or ‘unsettled returnees’? myth of return and permanent resettlement among Senegalese migrants
Based on ethnographic research conducted among Senegalese migrants in the home country and in Italy, this paper demonstrates the existence, the logics, and functioning of a transmigrant movement made of people who are regular ‘comers and goers’ between Africa and…
Research paper
Rural-to-urban migration, kinship networks, and fertility among the Igbo in Nigeria
This paper presents ethnographic data to suggest that fertility behavior in contemporary Igbo-speaking Nigeria cannot be understood without taking into account the ways in which rural and urban social and demographic regimes are mutually implicated and dialectically constituted.
Evidence review
Child Centred Disaster Risk Reduction and Climate Change Adaptation: Roles of Gender and Culture in Indonesia
The principle aim of this research was to investigate the roles of gender and religion in child-centred disaster risk reduction (DRR). Moreover, and through participatory research, informal conversations and direct advocacy, the project team hoped to build knowledge and awareness…
Background report
The Implications of Climate Change for Health in Africa
The interactions between health and climate change are clearly recognised; the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change includes a chapter on health issues in all its publications. But we still need to better understand all the possible impacts of climate change…
Briefing
Community-Based Approach to Improve Access to Prevention of Mother-to-Child Transmission Programmes in Dukwi Refugee Camp, Botswana
Prior to the UNHCR community-based PMTCT protocol, pregnant refugee women living with HIV were unable to access essential PMTCT services. Refugee women are now able to have access to a comprehensive PMTCT programme.
Evidence review
Climate Change and Health in SADC Region: Review of the Current State of Knowledge
Evidence shows that the SADC region is experiencing increasing frequency of hot days and decreasing frequency of extremely cold days. Rainfall trends are variable but evidence points to an increased inter-annual variability, with extremely wet periods and more intense droughts…
Evidence review
Culture and Mental Health in Haiti
This paper reviews and summarizes the available literature on Haitian mental health and mental health services. This review was conducted in light of the Haitian earthquake in January 2010. We searched Medline, Google Scholar and other available databases to gather…
Evidence review
Health and the Urban Transition. Effects of Household Perceptions, Illness, and Environmental Pollution on Clean Water Investment
Recent efforts to reinvigorate the connections between urban planning and health have usefully brought the field back to one of its original roles. Current research, however, has focused on industrialized cities, overlooking some of the important urbanization processes in poor…
Briefing
Water and Sanitation in Humanitarian Emergencies
In a humanitarian crisis a population’s needs are great and many–for medical attention, shelter, safe water and adequate sanitation, food, and security. Disasters that occur in places that are already resource-poor and underserviced are more devastating than they might otherwise…
