Radio and the commodification of natural medicine in Ecuador

Conducting a desk review to inform the mental health and psychosocial support response to the 2016 Ecuador earthquake

Following the 7.8 magnitude earthquake that struck Ecuador on 16 April 2016, multiple salient public health concerns were raised, including the need to provide mental health and psychosocial support for individual survivors and their communities. The World Health Organization and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees recommend conducting a desk review to summarize existing information, specific to the affected communities, that will support timely, culturally-attuned assessment and delivery of mental health and psychosocial support shortly after the onset of a disaster or humanitarian emergency. The desk review is one component of a comprehensive toolkit designed to inform and support humanitarian actors and their responders in the field. This commentary provides a case example of the development of a desk review that was used to inform personnel responding to the 2016 earthquake in Ecuador. The desk review process is described in addition to several innovations that were introduced to the process during this iteration. Strengths and limitations are discussed, as well as lessons learned and recommendations for future applications.

[Diarrheal illnesses on the Ecuadorian coast: socio-environmental changes and health concepts]

The authors present an ethnoepidemiological study of diarrheal illnesses in 21 communities on the northern coast of Ecuador, where numerous social and environmental changes have taken place since 2001 due to a new highway. As communities realize that nature itself is changing, changes occur in their interpretations of health and disease, which the authors present through a taxonomic classification of diarrheal illnesses. Given the high incidence of diarrheal diseases, alternative concepts have emerged (as compared to those of biomedicine) in relation to causes, symptoms, and treatments. The non-biomedical and biomedical systems overlap, with mixtures of coexistence and resistance. Recognizing this reality means understanding a series of challenges for the official health system, including the indiscriminate use of antibiotics, non-use of health services for some diseases, and perceived relations between environmental contamination and the efficacy of modern and traditional medicines.

Cross-cultural adaptation in urban ethnobotany: the Colombian folk pharmacopoeia in London

AIM OF THE STUDY

To investigate traditional health care practices and changes in medicinal plant use among the growing Colombian community in London.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

Ethnobotanical fieldwork consisted of qualitative, in-depth, semi-structured interviews with 23 Colombians living in London and botanical identification of 46 plant species actively used as herbal remedies. Subsequently, research data were compared with literature on ethnobotany and traditional herbal medicine in the home country, using a framework on cross-cultural adaptation, adjusted for the purpose of this study.

RESULTS

Similarities and discrepancies between data and literature are interpreted as potential indicators of continuity and loss (or deculturation) of traditional remedies, respectively. Remedies used in London that are not corroborated by the literature suggest possible newly acquired uses.

CONCLUSIONS

Cross-cultural adaptation related to health care practices is a multifaceted process. Persistence, loss and incorporation of remedies into the Colombian folk pharmacopoeia after migration are influenced by practical adaptation strategies as well as by symbolic-cultural motives of ethnic identity.

A scoping review of research on complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) and the mass media: looking back, moving forward

BACKGROUND

The use of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) has become more common in Western developed countries in recent years, as has media reporting on CAM and related issues. Correspondingly, media reports are a primary information source regarding decisions to use CAM. Research on CAM related media reports is becoming increasingly relevant and important; however, identifying key concepts to guide future research is problematic due to the dispersed nature of completed research in this field. A scoping review was conducted to: 1) determine the amount, focus and nature of research on CAM and the mass media; and 2) summarize and disseminate related research results.

METHODS

The main phases were: 1) searching for relevant studies; 2) selecting studies based on pre-defined inclusion criteria; 3) extracting data; and 4) collating, summarizing and reporting the results.

RESULTS

Of 4,454 studies identified through various search strategies, 16 were relevant to our objectives and included in a final sample. CAM and media research has focused primarily on print media coverage of a range of CAM therapies, although only a few studies articulated differences within the range of therapies surveyed. Research has been developed through a variety of disciplinary perspectives, with a focus on representation research. The research reviewed suggests that journalists draw on a range of sources to prepare media reports, although most commonly they cite conventional (versus CAM) sources and personal anecdotes. The tone of media reports appears generally positive, which may be related to a lack of reporting on issues related to risk and safety. Finally, a variety of discourses within media representations of CAM are apparent that each appeal to a specific audience through resonance with their specific concerns.

CONCLUSION

Research on CAM and the mass media spans multiple disciplines and strategies of inquiry; however, despite the diversity in approach, it is clear that issues related to production and reception of media content are in need of research attention. To address the varied issues in a comprehensive manner, future research needs to be collaborative, involving researchers across disciplines, journalists and CAM users.

The failure of pharmaceuticals and the power of plants: medicinal discourse as a critique of modernity in the Amazon

This paper examines how caregivers' medicinal discourse serves as an indirect critique of modernization, urbanization and development in the Brazilian Amazon. When caregivers in two peri-urban neighborhoods, Triunfo and Bairro da Luz, discuss medicinal plants they highlight the positive aspects of phytotherapy and associate it with traditional rural lifestyles. In contrast, they tend to emphasize the shortcomings of pharmaceuticals, which they link to modernity and urbanization. This discourse, which juxtaposes plants/tradition/positive with pharmaceuticals/modern/negative, contains counterhegemonic commentary about the failures of modernization, urbanization and development. While state sponsored development was supposed to bring prosperity to the Amazon, for many residents, like those in Bairro de Luz and Triunfo, it did not. In fact, some say development made their lives worse, claiming that poverty and poor health are among the prices they have paid. Due to the shortcomings of modernization and urbanization in other areas of their life, caregivers are ambivalent about biomedicine and the pharmaceuticals they associate with it. Moreover, because medicinal plant remedies embody traditional values, asserting they are stronger, more potent, better and more effective, especially in an urban context, is a moral commentary on the shortcomings of modernity. Finally, by insisting that traditional plant remedies are better at curing the health problems that result from modern, urban lifestyles, they are subtly asserting the superiority of tradition over modernity.

Why nation-states and journalists can't teach people to be healthy: power and pragmatic miscalculation in public discourses on health

This article analyzes how Venezuelan public health officials collaborated with journalists in producing information about cholera in January-December 1991. It uses Michael Warner's (2002) observation that such public discourse involves a contradiction: it must project the image of reaching an actually existing public at the same time that it creates multiple publics as it circulates. The analysis explores the language ideologies that hide complex sets of practices, networks, and material conditions that shape how public discourses circulate. At the same time that epidemiologists targeted poor barrio residents, street vendors of food and drink, and indigenous people as being "at high risk," health education messages pictured women in well-equipped kitchens demonstrating cholera prevention measures. The gap between these ideal audiences and the discrepant publics created by their circulation limited the effectiveness of prevention efforts and created a substantial chasm between public health institutions and the publics they sought to reach.