Some background to Yoruba beliefs is necessary before discussing the comments of the study participants. Interestingly those Western anthropologists, such as Evans-Pritchard (Evans-Pritchard, 1937), so criticised now by African social scientists (Amadiume, 1987) have had their work used to try to understand contemporary lay beliefs in developed countries, e.g. Likewise, people were losing faith with modern hospitals due to their lack of resources and poor staff morale, and turning back to the traditional structure of Ifa to find solutions to problems. Moreover, the Yoruba live in uncertain times, politically, socially and economically, and with possibly declining indices of development. Search for other works by this author on: Effectiveness of pictographs in improving patient education outcomes: a systematic review, Parenting style as longitudinal predictor of adolescentsâ health behaviors in Lebanon, Getting the right message: a content analysis and application of the health literacy INDEX tool to online HIV resources in Australia, Is type of practice setting associated with physicianâs cultural competency training? However, mechanistic accounts are more pluralist in spirit, and do not try to locate a single feature of the ⦠PIP: Understanding a disease concept as a causal structure like that shown in figure 1 is consistent with aspects of prototype and exemplar theories of concepts. There have been `Dramatic increases in the proportion and absolute number of traffic fatalities in a number of developing countries' [see Odero et al., p. 445 (Odero et al., 1997)]. Road accidents have been recognized as a major public health problem in Nigeria for some time (Asogwa, 1978). Failure to entice people to become involved is often seen as a reason not to pursue particular programmes, sometimes to the detriment of that community. It furthers the University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide, This PDF is available to Subscribers Only. (1991) Empirical case studies of accidents and safety control of mass transit agencies in Nigeria. Recommendations as to the way forward are then proposed. Setiloane (Setiloane, 1978), noting the derogatory connotation of `witchcraft', has argued that Africans need to define their own terms rather than relying on colonial translations of concepts important to African cultures. Ibadan University Press, Ibadan, pp. Accidents and unintentional injury in developing countries, Increasing poverty and structural adjustment programmes, Health promotion discourse and accident prevention, Receive exclusive offers and updates from Oxford Academic. This study further underscores the need to incorporate folk theories of disease causation, gender and malaria issues into malaria control strategies in order to improve their coverage and effectiveness in different contexts. This can lead to different patterns of health-seeking and prevention, as well as mismatched provision of care.4 â 6 Second, cultural habits and practices can protect against, modify or create novel vectors for transmissible disease through, for example, eating culturally preferred raw or undercooked food,7 8 hygienic ⦠Table II shows the main causes of admission. In Ademuwagun, A., et al. Patients may have symptoms that approximately match a set of symptoms that typically occur in people with a particular disease. Specifically, the main learning objective of introduction to sociocultural anthropology is to familiarize students with the basic ideas, issues, concepts and principles of anthropology. Accident prevention raises fundamental issues about different cosmologies, different views on accident causation and on the desirability of particular courses of action. In common with other African systems of belief about disease causation, the Yoruba believe that some diseases (such as malaria) have a simple, natural cause and others have supernatural causes (Ayoade, 1979; Oladepo and Sridhar, 1987; Ramakrishna et al., 1989; Moloye, 1992). L, Katz, J. and Peberdy, A. HMSO, London. Another study in Igbo-Ora found that 43.4% of apprentices to a variety of trades (including tailoring, motor mechanic, barbering, etc.) Varma, A., Souba, J., Faiz, A. and Sinha, K. (, Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. The accident rate in Nigeria is appallingly high. In India, Mohan (Mohan, 1984) estimated that only one-third of deaths from injuries were recorded in official statistics. Such assertions require caution and further research is needed to look at the precise effect on accident rates of increased poverty at the household level. 257â262. Use of Safety Pin on Garments in Pregnancy: A Belief and Cultural Practice with Potential Harmful Effect. 1995 Apr;(17):11. This view is at odds with the dominant themes of the modern health promotion movement. (Davison et al., 1991). The present exploratory research addresses the gaps not by considering the appropriateness of technical solutions formulated predominantly in the West, but by exploring the differing worldviews of the countries where they were developed and that of where they might be applied. The list goes on and on. This type of analysis has led to the production of the idea that health promotion is involved in a battle for the hearts and minds of the population, a struggle between a modern belief in lifestyle and an atavistic culture of `fatalism'. Nigeria. Igodan (Igodan, 1991) and Iyang (Iyang, 1991), including proper breaks for coach drivers and attention to shift patterns. Secondly, there needs to be a more critical and self-reflexive critique of health promotion. Safety as a Social Value. Basically, the causation approach is advocated by people who believe that the environment is largely predictable and that research, analysis and planning lead to rational decision processes and optimal outcomes. The choice of one's ori, or head/destiny, however, is perhaps not as fixed as this. Health Promotion, Leeds Metropolitan University, Leeds LS1 3HE, UK. From talking to local people, it is clear that Muslims and Christians may also adhere to belief in traditional African deities, and that they and believers in traditional African religion all consult babalawos. infectious disease, malaria, traditional cultural views, burden of disease, gender, folk ⦠Basic to Yoruba belief is the idea of pre-destination, which has led to a belief that accidents may be pre-determined, and to the use of the babalawo to give advice about the future. This site needs JavaScript to work properly. Treatment would not be given unless essential items such as syringes could be paid for by patients or their relatives. African Press, Ibadan, p. 91. _Hill's Criteria of Causation National Center for Biotechnology Information, Unable to load your collection due to an error, Unable to load your delegates due to an error, Newsl Inter Afr Comm Tradit Pract Affect Health Women Child. that one's life (and death) has been mapped out before birth. Needless to say, such research needs to be qualitative (Ramakrishna and Brieger, 1987). These areas overlap with epidemiological disease causing theories that would appear reasonable to modern medical science. Data extracted from the death records held at the public hospital in Igbo-Ora for 1988â92 are shown in Table I. `Each individual's ori is his personal divinity who regulates his life in conformity with the wishes of the divinities who exist for the general public interest' [see Abimbola, p. 34 (Abimbola, 1975)]. There is widespread use of traditional healers and sometimes villagers go to the clinic or hospital only when other remedies have failed. Department of Health (1992) The Health of the Nation: A Strategy for Health in England. the programmes of economic reform imposed by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, and the hardship these have led to for ordinary people) were mentioned by several contributors to the Accident Control Workshop held in Lagos in 1991 (Bolade and Ogunsaya, 1991) as contributing to the accident rate. Pearce (1989) also argued that "it is too simplistic to see disease as something physical, which attacks the body". More research could usefully be carried out on the cultural significance of roads. Idowu (Idowu, 1962) comments that `As far as they (the Yoruba) are concerned, the full responsibility of all the affairs of life belongs to the Deity, their own part in the matter is to do as they are ordered through the priests and diviners' (p. 5). In Bolade, T. and Ogunsaya, A. It was also their view that financial constraints in hospitals meant that delays in treatment were occurring. Hospital data only record cases which reach hospitalâand these may not necessarily be the most severe. All entries relating to unintentional injuries were extracted for 1 year, from March 1993 to March 1994. Igodan, V. O. The miasma theory (also called the miasmatic theory) is an obsolete medical theory that held that diseasesâsuch as cholera, chlamydia, or the Black Deathâwere caused by a miasma (μίαÏμα, Ancient Greek for "pollution"), a noxious form of "bad air", also known as night air.The theory held that epidemics were caused by ⦠buying of licences and certificates) and yet people still need to travel to make a living. There is some evidence of the effect of SAPs on health (Onimode, 1989) but the precise relationship between SAPs, economic decline and increases in injuries requires further empirical research. NIH They may, in fact, force a reconsideration of accepted beliefs and principles. The significance of forces outside the individual is related to the concept of predestination, which is basic to Yoruba philosophy and daily life. In summary, this contemporary health promotion discourse is predominantly Western and secular, and possibly sits uneasily with other liberal values such as respecting other people's cultural sensitivities. Asogwa, p. 154 (Asogwa, 1992), has called for `technical know-how from advanced motorized countries where road accidents are well under control using well tested countermeasures' to be applied to Nigeria. Ramakrishna, J., Brieger, W. R. and Adeniyi, J. Thirdly, it may be possible for the authorities to pursue engineering measures to promote safety. The Yoruba are not alone in believing that one's fate does not reside within the person; there are similar beliefs in many other African cultures and other world religions. Each person has an ori (loosely translated as `head' but also as destiny), chosen for him or her. Bathing in boiling water results in many women being burned or disfigured; gishiri cut has resulted in vesicovaginal fistula in many young girls. TOT or training of trainers of TBAs. Nigeria reached a certain level of development where, for example, fast, straight roads were built, but vehicle maintenance and enforcement of regulations have not kept pace (Asogwa, 1992). Ironically, the petrol shortages in Nigeria may lead to a reduction in RTAs. Some of these cultural practices, which have endured centuries of practice work for the ⦠Ogunsanya and Waziri, p. 87 (Ogunsanya and Waziri, 1991), state that in 1988 `...the country recorded 25 292 accidents with 9077 deaths', resulting in `an embarrassing rate of 69 accidents and 24 deaths every day of that year...This situation is disturbing as the majority of those killed fall within the productive age of 16â44. This stage of research is often not reported in the literature. Recent years have seen increased willingness to incorporate lay beliefs into health promotion activity and to accept that what appears `rational' to one person or culture may not to another, but this appears to be lacking in the area of accident causation. Thanks are given to the British Council for funding visits to Nigeria, to Dr Bill Brieger, without whom this paper would not have been possible, Mr Emmanual Adams for his help in Nigeria, Professor Keith Tones for comments on earlier versions of this paper and to my colleague Sally Foster. Data taken from admissions records to the hospital and private clinics (the three facilities which treat accidents) show a similar dominance of RTAs. The pursuit of engineering measures to promote safety raises a number of difficult issues. There are major questions regarding who carries out the research and this author is well aware of the issues in researching African culture as a non-African (Dixey, 1985). Green, J. Ibadan University Press, Ibadan, pp. The outcome is not recorded (i.e. All the women were petty traders and half the men were drivers by occupation. Osinubi, A. This is particularly the case for the poorest countries, many in sub-Saharan Africa; Asogwa (Asogwa, 1992) describes how even fatalities are under-reported. Burns and poisonings and from death registers was also their view that financial constraints in hospitals that... Programs change behavior have shown promise in developing countries of Community participation as marketplace: historical, cosmological, several! And Ladjali, M. ( 1992 ), 25 Years of the burden of mother-to-child transmission HIV!, socially and economically, and its pre-occupation with Control and safety Measures in Mass Transit Operations in Nigeria severe! IbadanâLagos Expressway, are particularly dangerous the IbadanâLagos Expressway, are particularly.! To have a worldview with pre-destination as a major public health problem Nigeria! 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