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Editorial
Decolonizing a Wretched Healthcare System: The African Public Health Practitioner Case
Ethnicity & disease, Vol.34(1), pp.49-52
Winter 2024
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Abstract
Introduction: Over the past two years, public health practitioners in African countries have worked actively to combat the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic with relatively low fatality rates. This pandemic has forced healthcare professionals to re-think and redesign the healthcare system within their own country.
Methods: Using the Afrocentric PEN-3 framework and a letter style, the purpose of this commentary was to describe the positive, existential, and negative socio-cultural values associated with African healthcare systems. The commentary also highlights socio-cultural factors affecting public trust in African healthcare systems and their health agencies and how systematically decolonizing them may decrease foreign reliance and empower efficient locally based solutions.
Results: We, as African public health practitioners, make three key points in this commentary. First, African public health practitioners have developed resilience within under-resourced healthcare systems. Secondly, oral tradition in African societies and its byproduct (social media) is the means through which people connect and share what they know about any topics (COVID-19). Thirdly, African leaders have particularly contributed to the high level of distrust in their countries' healthcare systems in favor of the healthcare systems of industrialized countries.
Conclusion: This commentary concludes with implications for encouraging African public health practitioners to cultivate the resilience that has led to contributing to the wellness of millions of Africans during this COVID-19 pandemic.
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Details
- Title
- Decolonizing a Wretched Healthcare System
- Publication Details
- Ethnicity & disease, Vol.34(1), pp.49-52
- Resource Type
- Editorial
- Publisher
- International Society on Hypertension in Blacks
- Identifiers
- 99380558882306600
- Academic Unit
- Public Health; Usha Kundu, MD College of Health
- Language
- English