Sickness, health and therapeutic trajectories in the Kilimanjaro region, Tanzania: A community perspective on global health

Research summary

In this research project, I examine and analyse globalised health care policies and the related infrastructures in the Kilimanjaro region in Tanzania. I will provide a holistic portrayal of a health system and the peoples it serves by exploring the vicissitudes of sickness and health and the plurality of therapeutic trajectories. The project produces new knowledge about the state of public and private health care systems and infrastructures under free-market conditions by using a local-scale approach to examine a global issue. Additionally, the project will contribute to a broader understanding of health-seeking behaviours by using ethnographic methods to analyse social dynamics of health care in the community and within health care systems. The project has an explicit aim of producing information that will have direct uses in improving health care systems and infrastructure in the developing world.

Description

Research info

Research title
Sickness, health and therapeutic trajectories in the Kilimanjaro region, Tanzania: A community perspective on global health

Research timeline
1.1.2015 - 1.1.2019

Keywords
biomedicine community ethnography global health healing health care health policy health-seeking behaviour inequality infrastructure insurance schemes medical anthropology participatory programmes primary health care private health care public health care sickness therapy World Health Organisation

Region
Africa

Countries
Finland, Tanzania, United Republic Of

Institution
University of Helsinki
Social and Cultural Anthropology, Faculty of Social Sciences
Helsinki, Finland

Head of research
Satu Ylisaari

Contact information
Satu Ylisaari
satu.ylisaari@helsinki.fi

Record last updated
17.4.2015