Demand for vaccination in Sub-Saharan Africa: The vertical legacy of the slave trade

Athias, Laure; Macina, Moudo

doi:10.1016/j.socscimed.2021.114640

Cited by 4 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 32 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Vaccination in Sierra Leone: addressing an anomaly Athias and Macina (2022) point out that in Africa issues such as trust in medicine are affected by histories of violence associated with four centuries of slave trade. Streefland et al (1999) suggested that 'local vaccination cultures, with their own health practices, knowledge and beliefs about immunization and past experiences with routine or campaign vaccination' will determine whether parents continue to have their children vaccinated.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…a paper by Streefland et al, 1999) raises the importance of documenting past experiences of 'routine or campaign vaccination', an issue further developed in the present paper. Athias and Macina (2022) offer evidence that the 'signature' of a major traumatic historical occurrencefour centuries of African slave tradecan still be detected in the differing degrees of trust African communities place in vaccines. In short, history matters, in making correct assessments of vaccine response and vaccine hesitation.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

‘Vaccines are for children only’? Some institutional roots of popular scepticism about vaccines for COVID-19 in Sierra Leone

Mokuwa

2023

J. Biosoc. Sci.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Vaccines for COVID-19 began to be available in Africa from mid-2021. This paper reports on local reactions to the possibility of vaccination in one West African country, Sierra Leone. We show that the history of institutionalisation of vaccine is highly relevant to understanding these reactions. Given lack of testing for the disease, medical authorities could not be sure whether there was a hidden epidemic. In addition, many people associate vaccination with care of children under 5 years, and not adults, and an emphasis on vaccinating the old at first seemed strange and worrying. This paper examines evidence from ethnographic studies in two rural areas selected for varying exposure to Ebola Virus Disease (EVD), supplemented by some interviews in two provincial urban centres, Bo and Kenema. We describe local ideas about vaccination (maklet) and body marking with leaf medicine (tεwi). We asked about attitudes to the idea of COVID-19 vaccination both before and after vaccines were available. A number of reasons were given for scepticism and hesitation. These included lack of experience with vaccines for adults and lack of experience of COVID-19 as a severe disease. Medical evidence suggests the vaccination protects against serious illness, but local people had their own views about control of infection, based both recent experience (notably EVD) and the history and institutionalisation of vaccination and public health measures in Sierra Leone more broadly.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

‘Vaccines are for children only’? Some institutional roots of popular scepticism about vaccines for COVID-19 in Sierra Leone

Mokuwa

2023

J. Biosoc. Sci.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

Quantifiable Cross-cultural Research on Medical Mistrust is Necessary for Effective and Equitable Vaccination in Low- and Middle-income Countries

Prall

2024

J Epidemiol Glob Health

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Perceptions of healthcare personnel and institutions substantially impact healthcare behaviors. In the US, minority experiences with racist events like the Tuskegee study, alongside everyday experiences of marginalization and discrimination, drive medical mistrust in populations that are already burdened with health inequalities. However, the concept of medical mistrust is rarely applied outside of industrialized contexts. Histories of colonialism, underfunded healthcare institutions, and the enormous cultural and ethnolinguistic diversity present in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) make medical mistrust a likely contributor to health behavior in these contexts. In the era of COVID-19 and emergent malaria vaccines, there is an urgent need to mitigate factors leading to medical mistrust, which impedes interest in novel vaccines. Doing so requires substantial investment in research that examines the causes of medical mistrust across diverse communities, develops methodological tools that can effectively measure medical mistrust across diverse cultural and ethno-linguistic contexts, and applies this data to policy and public health messaging. This commentary highlights the role of medical mistrust in vaccination and argues for its utility in addressing vaccine decision-making in LMICs.

show abstract

Community-based health programs and child vaccinations: Evidence from Madagascar

Herrera‐Almanza

Rosales-Rueda

2023

World Development

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Demand for vaccination in Sub-Saharan Africa: The vertical legacy of the slave trade

Cited by 4 publications

References 32 publications

‘Vaccines are for children only’? Some institutional roots of popular scepticism about vaccines for COVID-19 in Sierra Leone

‘Vaccines are for children only’? Some institutional roots of popular scepticism about vaccines for COVID-19 in Sierra Leone

Quantifiable Cross-cultural Research on Medical Mistrust is Necessary for Effective and Equitable Vaccination in Low- and Middle-income Countries

Community-based health programs and child vaccinations: Evidence from Madagascar

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About