Issues And Perspectives On Health Care In Contemporary Sub Saharan Africa

Contemporary Healthcare Issues in Sub-Saharan Africa: Social, Economic, and Cultural Perspectives discusses contemporary healthcare issues in Sub-Saharan Africa to identify deficiencies in the system and provide workable recommendations for strengthening healthcare delivery on the continent. Contributors address topical issues such as drug quality, malaria control, health insurance, geriatric care, and the environment-health nexus. The contributors also study intimate partner violence and maternal-child health, food safety, prevalence of childhood tuberculosis, and cardiovascular diseases. This book provides in-depth analyses of current issues in Sub-Saharan Africa that blend theory and practice. The diverse group of contributors includes experts in clinical medicine, pharmacy, economics, anthropology, public health, and the social sciences.

This volume creates a platform to showcase health geography research from countries in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), and draws on theoretical and methodological innovations to initiate a discussion on the complexities of the issues impacting health in the region. Through theoretically and empirically grounded contributions from a variety of researchers working across SSA, the book addresses a wide range of topics that are usually treated separately when discussing health geography in the region. By bridging the social science and health disciplines, the book introduces new ways of thinking temporally and spatially about these topics in non-geography contexts as well. In 4 sections, the text will broadly appeal to students, researchers, teachers, policy makers, and global health professionals. Section 1 addresses the social determinants of health, including gender, disability, and other inequities and inequalities associated with healthcare access. Section 2 discusses the environmental determinants of health such as food security, water and sanitation, mining, and climate change. Section 3 focuses on current and emerging challenges to health in SSA, including ageing, non-communicable disease, and infectious diseases. Section 4 concludes the text by discussing the need to develop social and environmental intervention policies and strategies to address health challenges in SSA.

This fascinating collection shines a social epidemiological spotlight on the key public health issues affecting sub-Saharan Africa today. Beginning with the legacy of colonial rule, this book outlines the complex interplay between population health and a range of social, economic, and cultural factors. It shows how social epidemiological methods can offer a deeper understanding of population health and features chapters on a range of infectious diseases that continue to have a devastating impact on the region, including Sickle Cell Disease, HIV/AIDS, Leprosy, and Ebola. The final section of this book includes a series of case studies in which social epidemiological methods have been used to explore specific public health issues. Providing a timely overview of the relationship between social systems and human biology in the region, this important book will interest students and researchers across Public Health, Medicine, and African Studies.

This volume addresses the ideational and policy-oriented challenges of Africa’s health governance due to voluntary and involuntary cross-border migration of people and diseases in a growing 'mobile Africa'. The collected set of specialized contributions in this volume examines how national and regional policy innovation can address the competing conception of sovereignty in dealing with Africa’s emerging healthcare problems in a fast-paced, interconnect world.

In our globalized world, diseases originating in Africa have become worldwide concerns. Health in Contemporary Africa examines the illnesses that affect people around the continent, as well as the challenges countries face due to current infrastructure. The book traces the transmission of disease and medical interventions while looking ahead to cutting edge technology and new advances poised to improve lives around Africa.

This open access book evaluates African healthcare systems from multiple perspectives. By examining empirical data from various African countries, it analyzes the effects of socioeconomic factors such as urbanization, population growth, and education on various health indicators, including the situation of health professionals, patients's decision making, health resource distribution, mortality rates, and the burden of disease. Furthermore, topics such as the use of social media in healthcare and insurance policy in Africa are addressed. This book appeals to scholars and professionals interested in healthcare in Africa.

The challenges to better health services in Africa are well known: Africa lags behind all regions of the world, including other developing regions, on all indicators of better health. A recent report from the World Health Organisation for instance shows that while Africa has 20% of the world's sick people, it has only 4% of its healthcare workers - many of them vulnerable to the high mortality rate associated with malaria and notably the AIDS epidemic. The state of investment in healthcare infrastructure is also grossly inadequate as is the efficiency of healthcare delivery. But does this need to be so? What factors are responsible for this unacceptable state of affairs? Contributors to the volume examine the evolution of healthcare services in Africa, the ongoing national, regional and continental efforts to improve the delivery of healthcare in the continent, and the direct and indirect obstacles militating against the maturation of the services and their efficient delivery. The contributors - all distinguished experts in the field, who hold either challenging responsibilities in health in Africa or have worked in multiple components of the healthcare delivery system in the continent - also provide powerful personal insights and lessons learned in their current or previous work in the health sector in Africa. Some of the themes covered include clinical care and centers of excellence, healthcare finance and resource mobilization, primary health care systems and community health; preventive care and risk reduction in health; the role of reference laboratories; clinical research and partnerships, the role of epidemiology, statistics, monitoring and evaluation in health services; the role of the African Diaspora, and the role of politics in the organization of healthcare and the training of medical and other health professionals. From their analyses and experience the authors articulate proven strategies and solutions based on consensus expert opinions on how to improve the quality of health services and health outcomes in the continent.

Drawing on extensive fieldwork in nine African countries, this volume offers different perspectives on the emerging markets for well-being. The chapters discuss how medical staff, patients and citizins navigate markets for health and healing.

This book focuses on Africa’s challenges, achievements, and failures over the past several centuries using an interdisciplinary approach that combines theory and fact and evidence-based practices and interventions in public health, and argues that most of the health problems in Africa are not a result of scarce or lack of resources, but of the misconceived and misplaced priorities that have left the continent behind every other on the globe in terms of health, education, and equitable distribution of opportunities and access to (quality) health as agreed by the United Nations member states at Alma-Ata in 1978.