Aids And Stds In Africa: Bridging The Gap Between Traditional Healing And Modern Medicine

by Edward C Green

Overview

This book emphasizes the factors in the spread and control of AIDS that have received less attention in the literature. It suggests that a collaborative action program involving traditional healers is necessary if we wish to impact the spread of AIDS and other STDs in Africa.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780367014056
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	06/17/2019
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Edward C. Green is a senior research scientist at the Harvard School of Public Health and Director of the Harvard AIDS Prevention Research Project at the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies. He the author of numerous books, edited volumes, and academic articles, including the seminal Rethinking AIDS Prevention: Learning from Successes in Developing Countries (Praeger, 2003). He has also published books and articles about indigenous knowledge and behaviors related to medicine and healing.

Table of Contents

0. Introduction 1. The Intriguing Epidemiology of AIDS in Africa 2. Issues in the Development of Collaborative Programs 3. Preliminary Research in Swaziland 4. STDs and AIDS in Liberia 5. STDs and AIDS in Mozambique 6. The Relevance of Family-Planning Programs 7. Developing Roles for South African Traditional Healers in HIV/AIDS Prevention and Management 8. Evaluation of the "Second Generation" of South African Traditional Healers Trained in HIV/AIDS Prevention 9. Summary and Conclusion

Editorial Reviews

Green, a medical anthropologist with field experience in Swaziland, Nigeria, Mozambique, and Liberia, presents a substantial amount of data and realistic thinking. He believes that modern Western medicine and traditional sub-Saharan African healing should work together rather than compete. The individual interviews and focus group discussions he reports show that traditional healers have done much of value and that many of them are sufficiently flexible and capable to benefit from education in some Western medical practices. Those must, however, be transmitted in the spirit of cooperation rather than imposition; each group of health practitioners, Western and African, can learn from the other; for example, Westerners can discover that in Africa the category of STDs covers many more illnesses than they include under the term.

William Beatty