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What social factors contribute to the tragic state of health care in Africa?
Focusing on East African societies, this book is the first to investigate what role religion plays in health care in African cultures. Taking into account the geopolitical and economic environments of the region, the authors examine the roles played by individual and group beliefs, government policies, and pressure from the Millennium Development Goals in affecting health outcomes.
Informed by existing related studies, and on-the-ground interviews with individuals and organizations in Uganda, Mozambique and Ethiopia, this interdisciplinary book will form an invaluable resource for scholars seeking to better understand the links between society, multi-level state instruments, and health care in East Africa.
The chapter examines the physical, psychological, and emotional challenges faced by researcher and research participant in qualitative field research into the underlying drivers of violent communal conflict, as well as inhibitors to successful resolution. The reflections in this chapter are drawn from the author’s qualitative field research experiences in Somalia, Yemen, Darfur Sudan, Niger, Colombia, Iraq, and Afghanistan. The utility of this chapter is a deeper appreciation of the importance of qualitative field research in studies involving violent communal conflict, and an understanding of how transference and countertransference work to degrade data collection and analysis.
Co-authored by four high-profile International Relations scholars, this book investigates the implications of the global ascent of China on cross-Strait relations and the identity of Taiwan as a democratic state.
Examining an array of factors that affect identity formation, the authors consider the influence of the rapid military and economic rise of China on Taiwan’s identity. Their assessment offers valuable insights into which policies have the best chance of resulting in peaceful relations and prosperity across the Taiwan Strait and builds a new theory of identity at elite and mass levels. It also possesses implications for the United States-led world order and today’s most critical great power competition.
Using a variety of novel data sources from the RegData project, we show that population levels and the amount of regulation are highly correlated across countries and time, and that more-populated US states, Australian states and Canadian provinces tend to be more heavily regulated than less-populated states and provinces. A doubling of population size is associated with a 22 to 33 per cent increase in regulation. This provides support for the theory that the fixed costs associated with regulating partly determine where and when regulations occur.
The past 20 years have seen an increase in the percentage of families headed by single parents in virtually all countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). In the United States, for example, the percentage rose from 22.7 to 27.1 between 1986 and 1996 (OECD, 1999). Over the same period of time, the rate of expansion of government programmes and transfers among OECD countries has declined. Because of these two trends, the collection of private child support has increasingly come to be perceived as a vital source of financial support for single parent families and an important issue in public policy. Several OECD countries, for example, have established new policies and programmes aimed at increasing the number and level of private child support payments.
Have these attempts succeeded? Have these countries improved their collection of child support over time and in relation to other OECD countries? More generally, how has the collection of private child support evolved in OECD countries over the past two decades? Where do we stand today? In this chapter, we provide preliminary answers to these questions using data from the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS) between the late 1970s and the mid-1990s to examine the levels and trends of child support payments in seven OECD countries. This chapter proceeds as follows. In the next section, we present some background information about child support in general and provide a brief overview of recent changes in child support policies in the countries we examine. Next, we describe the data and methodology used to answer these questions. We then present our results and discuss their implications.
The ‘travel ban’ or ‘Muslim ban’, issued by the Trump administration in 2017, was upheld by the Supreme Court in 2018 in its third iteration. It was rescinded by President Biden. This article focuses on the mobilisation of Arab and Muslim Americans as minorities facing intentional discrimination. Responses from diasporas in metropolitan Detroit, which emphasise Muslim- and Arab-American community mobilisation, are examined in detail. The ban led to ten responses, including protests, media activism, communications with Congress and legal action. The research agenda incorporates original research on the activity of 12 organisations in metropolitan Detroit. Analysis focuses on interactions between and among Arab Muslims, other Muslims, Arabic-speaking Christians, Japanese Americans, Latinos and women’s organisations. Examining this active minority response to discrimination tells the story anew – looking at groups’ politicisation, alliances among related but distinct Arab-American and Muslim communities, and coalitions across ethnicities. The research contributes to the academic literatures on Muslim and Arab diasporas.
It is estimated that populations in Africa are afflicted with 24% of the global load of disease with only 13% of the population. This chapter provides theoretical suggestions for studying why this is so. Among these theories are area studies, Africa studies and the World Health Organization’s Social Determinants of Health Framework, which relates social inequality to the study of political and health-providing institutions. The chapter lays out the book’s three case studies and our look at the role of national and international health and secular ngo’s in helping to remedy gendered health inequalities. It lays out the MDG framework of 2000, to be discussed in succeeding chapters.
This chapter focuses on health services and religion in the African context, providing a foundation for the case studies of Uganda, Mozambique, and Ethiopia. The chapter reviews previously identified patterns regarding the role of religion in health within Africa. The nexus of religion and health care is of central interest. Background knowledge is gleaned from the literature on the intersection of religion, health, and Africa. Patterns are identified and subsequently to evaluated by the new evidence obtained through qualitative and quantitative research, confirming that health care is regarded in a holistic way by Africans. This informs theorizing from the perspective of the Social Determinants of Health, within which an emphasis on women’s health is applied to processes and outcomes.
This chapter describes and analyzes how religion affects the provision and consumption of health services in Uganda. This is addressed by examining the political, economic, health, and religious contexts of the Uganda, reviewing existing research on religion and health care in Uganda, and presenting the results of interviews conducted by researchers. Interview material is organized into subsections corresponding to the general importance of religion, religion and health provision, religion and health-seeking behaviour, traditional and spiritual healing, and an evaluation of the role of religion in health care. This chapter also focuses on outcomes, evaluating evidence about religious determinants of health in terms of processes (conveyed by interviewees) and outcomes (in the context of the Millennium Development Goals).
This chapter examines religion and health care in Mozambique. The two basic questions are (1) “How does religion factor into the Social Determinants of Health?”; and (2) “What is its connection to outcomes?” The political, economic, health, and religious contexts of Mozambique are reviewed. The country is challenged by persistent poverty and underdevelopment. Mozambique had a Marxist government that suppressed religion. Religion nonetheless influences health care quite significantly in contemporary Mozambique. Christian and Muslim Faith-Based Organizations play an important role in fighting HIV/AIDS and the provision of health care in general. Pentecostalism is rising and plays a controversial role in its engagement with modern medicine. People often seek traditional health care and even combine such visits with more Western-style treatments from health centers and hospitals.
