‘Yassaba’ or the Fear of Being Abandoned
Health Promotion Messages and Local Meanings in Guinea
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Abstract
Health promotion is dependent upon sharing information with local populations and adapting health-care services to make them more acceptable, and is an essential part of any Ebola intervention. Listening to the concerns of local communities and engaging them as active participants ensures that health promotion messages are relevant, acceptable and understandable as well as culturally appropriate. Ebola is associated with fear and death, thus understanding the significance and meanings of life, death, disease and sickness for the Kissi of Guinea Forestière (Guinea) is essential for ensuring acceptable health services. Community engagement was essential for this research to gain the trust of the Kissi and to facilitate the sharing of knowledge and information to reduce the transmission of the Ebola virus. This technical account is based on three periods of ethnographic fieldwork and health promotion activities conducted in Guinea between May 2014 and February 2015.
Contributor Notes
Maria Cristina Manca is an anthropologist specialised in medical anthropology and global health. She has conducted fieldwork in rural and urban areas in Latin America and Africa, on which she has published several essays and participated in conferences. She is currently working as a project coordinator for Médecins Sans Frontières. E-mail: mariacristina.manca@tiscali.it