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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…
Background report
Strategic Review of DFID support to the Health and Population Sector in Pakistan and Recommendations for Future Support
The objective of this strategic review is to produce evidence-based options and recommendations for DFID’s strategy for engagement in Pakistan’s health and population sector over the next 3-5 years.The report suggests approaches that will work with- rather than just through–…
Background report
Governing Epidemics in an Age of Complexity: Narratives, Politics and Pathways to Sustainability
This paper elaborates a ‘pathways approach’ to addressing the governance challenges posed by the dynamics of complex, coupled, multi-scale systems, while incorporating explicit concern for equity, social justice and the wellbeing of poor and marginalised groups. It illustrates the approach…
Background report
Infection Control During Filoviral Hemorrhagic Fever Outbreaks: Preferences of Community Members and Health Workers in Masindi, Uganda
Interviews were conducted with health workers and community members in Masindi, Uganda on improving the acceptability of infection control measures used during an Ebola outbreak. Measures that promote cultural sensitivity and transparency of control activities were preferred and should be…
Does Mass Drug Administration for the Integrated Treatment of Neglected Tropical Diseases really work? Assessing Evidence for the Control of Schistosomiasis and Soil-Transmitted Helminths in Uganda
Less is known about mass drug administration [MDA] for neglected tropical diseases [NTDs] than is suggested by those so vigorously promoting expansion of the approach. This paper fills an important gap: it draws upon local level research to examine the…
Research paper
Silencing Distressed Children in the Context of War in Northern Uganda: An Analysis of its Dynamics and its Health Consequences
Children in northern Uganda who are the focus of this article were born and raised in the context of war. The research presented here is based on a one-year ethnographic study (2004–2005) with children aged 9–16 years.
Research paper
Health Sector Recovery in Early Post-Conflict Environments: Experience from Southern Sudan
Health sector recovery in post-conflict settings presents an opportunity for reform: analysis of policy processes can provide useful lessons. The case of southern Sudan is assessed through interviews, literature review, and by drawing on experiences of former technical advisers to…
Research paper
Dispersal, division and diversification: durable solutions and Sudanese refugees in Uganda
Questions over durable solutions in the social, political and security terrain of southern Sudan and northern Uganda invite recognition that simple delineations between “home” and “exile” are inadequate to understanding displacement and refugee status. Contrary to existing policies assuming an…
Research paper
Moral distress among Ugandan nurses providing HIV care: A critical ethnography
The phenomenon of moral distress among nurses has been described in a variety of high-income countries and practice settings. No research has been reported that addresses moral distress in severely resource-challenged regions such as sub-Saharan Africa. Through critical ethnography, this…
Corruption, NGOs, and development in Nigeria
This article examines corruption in Nigeria’s development sector, particularly in the vastly growing arena of local non-governmental organisations (NGOs). Grounded in ethnographic case studies, the analysis explores why local NGOs in Nigeria have proliferated so widely, what they do in…
Courting success in HIV/AIDS prevention: the challenges of addressing a concentrated epidemic in Senegal
This article presents findings from a study of HIV/AIDS programmes for urban sex workers in Dakar, Senegal. The objective of the research was to assess HIV prevention and treatment efforts to date, and to identify challenges that must be overcome…
Past horrors, present struggles: the role of stigma in the association between war experiences and psychosocial adjustment among former child soldiers in Sierra Leone.
We examined the role of stigma (manifest in discrimination as well as lower levels of community and family acceptance) in the relationship between war-related experiences and psychosocial adjustment (depression, anxiety, hostility and adaptive behaviors).
Evidence review
Non-State Providers of Health Services in Fragile and Conflict-Affected States
There appears to be very little literature on the effectiveness of non-state providers (NSPs) of health services in fragile states. There is some useful case study material, particularly from Afghanistan and Cambodia although this tends to focus on the effectiveness…
Background report
The Political Economy of Avian Influenza Response and Control in Vietnam
As a country suffering from large-scale AI outbreaks and receiving considerable international support, Vietnam provides a crucial case not to be missed in any analysis of the global AI crisis. Vietnam is also interesting because of two paradoxes in her…
Evidence review
Zimbabwe 2008-2009 Cholera Outbreak Crisis Review
This After Action Review (AAR) covered CARE’s responses to the Cholera Crisis in Zimbabwe from 2008 to 2009. The purpose of this AAR is to contribute to CARE’s understanding of the cholera response, and to help promote learning and accountability…
Background report
Anthropological Perspectives on Disasters and Disability: An Introduction
Natural disasters and disasters that directly derive from human actions, both evolving and sudden, trace the structural fault lines of the societies that they affect. Disaster outcomes disproportionately impact those with the least access to social and material resources: women…
Background report
Risk and Outbreak Communication: Lessons from Alternative Paradigms
Risk communication guidelines widely used in public health are based on the psychometric paradigm of risk, which focuses on risk perception at the level of individuals. However, infectious disease outbreaks and other public health emergencies are more than public health…
Briefing
The Lessons of Swine Flu
As the swine flu outbreak backstory seeps out, there are some vitally important lessons that can be learned. Huge investment in pandemic preparedness and contingency plans, improvements in surveillance and response systems and stockpiling of drugs and vaccines have followed recent avian…
Background report
The Political Economy of Avian Influenza in Indonesia
Why is the response to H5N1 highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) so challenged in Indonesia? Why did the virus spread so fast, and why has the disease persisted? Are there features of the country and its culture that encourage or…
Background report
The Political Economy of Avian Influenza in Thailand
Thailand is centrally located relative to the Avian Influenza epidemic and her response to the disease has important implications for disease control efforts both regionally and globally. A middle income country with a large and economically significant export oriented poultry…
Evidence review
The Private Sector and Health: A Survey of Somaliland Private Pharmacies.
Within the private sector there are numerous levels of private care, but the majority of private facilities offering clinical care are clustered in large cities and are only accessible to the few who can afford them (and indeed, wealthier Somalis…
Background report
Costs for Households and Community Perception of Meningitis Epidemics in Burkina Faso
Bacterial meningitis in the African meningitis belt remains 1 of the most serious threats to health. The perceptions regarding meningitis in local populations and the cost of illness for households are not well described. We conducted an anthropologic and economic…
Background report
Biocommunicability and the Biopolitics of Pandemic Threats
In this article we assess accounts of the H1N1 virus or “swine flu” to draw attention to the ways in which discourse about biosecurity and global health citizenship during times of pandemic alarms supports calls for the creation of global…
Research paper
Negotiated peace for extortion: the case of Walikale territory in eastern DR Congo
War in the DRC has increasingly been explained as a means to get access to natural resources and as a strategy to get control over informal trading networks linked to global markets. In most of these accounts, the complexity of…
Book chapter
Why humanitarian organizations need to tackle land issues
Humanitarian organizations need to consider land issues for three sets of reasons. First, land crises are central to why humanitarian crises happen, and why they take the form that they do. Second, humanitarian responses, both during the height of crisis…
Book chapter
Going home: Land, return and reintegration in Southern Sudan and the Three Areas
The end of the war between the Government of Sudan and the Sudan People’s Liberation Army/Movement in 2005 has generated the return of an estimated 2.4 million IDPs and refugees to Southern Sudan and the three transitional areas (Abyei, Southern…
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
Indigenous climate knowledge in southern Uganda: the multiple components of a dynamic regional system
Farmers in southern Uganda seek information to anticipate the interannual variability in the timing and amount of precipitation, a matter of great importance to them since they rely on rain-fed agriculture for food supplies and income. This system of indigenous…
Flexibility in return, reconstruction and livelihoods in displaced villages in Casamance, Senegal
The paper argues that livelihoods research in situations of violent conflict and its aftermath can contribute to geographical understandings of flexibility. Such settings paradoxically demand greater flexibility from economic actors while imposing new and sometimes severe constraints on them to…
Research paper
The anti-politics of health reform: household power relations and child health in rural Senegal
This article employs ethnographic evidence from rural Senegal to explore two dimensions of health sector reform. First, it makes the case that health reforms intersect with and exacerbate existing social, political, and economic inequalities. Second, the article explores how liberal…
Research paper
Gendered War and Rumors of Saddam Hussein in Uganda
This article discusses the role of rumors in everyday Acholi life in war-torn northern Uganda. These rumors concern various health threats such as HIV and Ebola. The rumors are closely associated with the forces of domination that are alleged to…
Evidence review
Access to Conventional Schooling for Children and Young People Affected by HIV and AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa: A Cross-National Review of Recent Research Evidence
This paper examines the evidence on access to conventional schooling for children and young people affected by HIV and AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa and makes recommendations for the further development of the SOFIE Project. The findings reveal the highly complex…
Background report
Epidemics for All? Governing Health in a Global Age
Current global health policy is dominated by a preoccupation with infectious diseases and in particular with emerging or re-emerging infectious diseases that threaten to ‘break out’ of established patterns of prevalence or virulence into new areas and new victims. This…
Background report
The International Response to Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza: Science, Policy and Politics
Over the last decade, the avian influenza virus, H5N1, has spread across most of Asia and Europe and parts of Africa. In some countries – including Indonesia, China, Vietnam, Bangladesh, Nigeria and Egypt – the avian disease has probably become…
Briefing
Myths and Realities in Disaster Situations
In this resource, the World Health Organization debunk common myths relating to disaster situations and suggest further reading.
Background report
Haemorrhagic Fevers in Africa: Narratives, Politics and Pathways of Disease and Response
Outbreak narratives have justified rapid and sometimes draconian international policy responses and control measures. Yet there is a variety of other ways of framing haemorrhagic fevers. There present different views concerning who is at risk, and how? Is the ‘system’…
