TITLE: Health Promotion @ The Animal-Human Interface: Exploring Cultural Perceptions of Human and Animal Health Amongst the Maasai of Northern Tanzania, East Africa
INTRODUCTION: This project sought to explore how the Maasai perceive the link between their own health and the health of their animals using brucellosis as a zoonotic exemplar.
METHODS: All participants were sampled by either chain-referral or purposive sampling approaches. Participant observation was combined with 3 types of interviews: focus group interviews (n=70), key informant interviews with local human and animal healthcare personnel (n=9), and individual interviews with patients confirmed to have brucellosis (n=4).
RESULTS & Discussion: Maasai participants did not identify brucellosis as a priority disease nor did they identify brucellosis as disease affecting animals (data from focus group, key stakeholder and individual patient interviews). Conversely, local healthcare staff and government representatives listed brucellosis as a priority disease for both animals and humans. Varying descriptions of causality and initial use of traditional medicine were also found. These findings could have serious implications for future intervention design and implementation within this population.
CONCLUSIONS: The Maasai of Ngorongoro do not perceive their animals as a potential reservoir for brucellosis. This could be due to the differing clinical presentation and symptom profile in humans versus animals. This work may provide some explanation for why previous education based interventions have failed within Maasailand for zoonotic diseases such as brucellosis. More work in this area is required for future intervention design and implementation.
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Adam Thomas recently completed the Bachelor of Health Science's Health & Society stream, with a concentration in Anthropology. Currently, he is enrolled in the Leaders of Medicine program here at the University of Calgary Tanzania
Adam has been awarded a 2009 Joseph Armand Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarship and the Michael Smith Foreign Study Supplement from the Social Sciences and Humanities Council of Canada.
Research Interests: HIV/AIDS, prevention research, zoonotic disease, global health, health promotion, complex interventions, community-based intervention design and evaluation.
Adam has been awarded a 2009 Joseph Armand Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarship and the Michael Smith Foreign Study Supplement from the Social Sciences and Humanities Council of Canada.
Research Interests: HIV/AIDS, prevention research, zoonotic disease, global health, health promotion, complex interventions, community-based intervention design and evaluation.
