Riberinhos' experiences and practices of malaria in the Brazilian Amazon
Luciane Machado Freitas De Souza  1@  , Julie Laplante@
1 : University of Ottawa  (UO)  -  Site web
75 Laurier Ave E, Ottawa, ON K1N 6N5, Canada -  Canada

Malaria is one of the oldest diseases that affects poor populations especially those that live in African, Asian, and Latin American countries. Currently, the predominant knowledge about this disease is anchored in biomedical approaches and insufficient attention has being placed on how populations cope with malaria in their daily lives. The main goal of this research is to investigate how riberinhos experience and act upon malaria in endemic areas of Manaus and Careiro, State of Amazonas, Brazil. The specific objectives of this study are to explore riberinhos' illness experiences of malaria, to learn how they perceive the impact of malaria in their biological body and social lives; to analyze riberinhos' diagnostic practices including folk strategies to differentiate symptoms of malaria among other febrile diseases of the Brazilian Amazon and how they make use of public health services to identify malaria; to examine riberinhos' treatment practices to fight malarial infection including home-made medicines and pharmaceuticals, to analyze their perception about the effectiveness of these treatments. This study is anchored in ethnographic methodology. Interviews, participant observation, and visual methods namely photographs will be the methods used to get to know riberinhos' experiences and practices of malaria. In terms of expected results this study can provide insights on how people deal with the disease, as well as on how expert support can be oriented with relation to what is already being done to diagnose and treat malaria in communities of Brazilian Amazon.

 


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