Publication year: 2011
Source: Social Science & Medicine, In Press, Accepted Manuscript, Available online 21 July 2011
Kate R., Hampshire , Gina, Porter , Samuel Asiedu, Owusu , Augustine, Tanle , Albert, Abane
Despite a dominant view within Western biomedicine that children and medicines should be kept apart, a growing literature suggests that children and adolescents often take active roles in health-seeking. Here, we consider young people’s health-seeking practices in Ghana: a country with a rapidly changing therapeutic landscape, characterised by the recent introduction of a National Health Insurance Scheme, mass advertising of medicines, and increased use of mobile phones. Qualitative and quantitative data are presented from eight field-sites in urban and rural Ghana, including 131 individual interviews, focus groups, plus a questionnaire survey of 1005 8-to-18-year-olds. The data show that many young…
Highlights: ► Young people in Ghana are active health-seekers for themselves and others. ► Young people strategically develop social and economic resources for health-seeking. ► The telecommunications revolution in Ghana offers new health-seeking possibilities. ► Health policy should take young people’s medical realities as a starting point.