PHFI

Meghalaya in north east India has some of the poorest health indices in the country.  The allopathic stream of health care provision through government networks in rural India has been inadequate, mainly because of lack of manpower and poor infrastructure. Its indigenous people have their own non-codified tribal traditional medicine system that is locally popular.

The objectives of this prject are: i) to describe the health-seeking behaviours of Khasi women in rural Meghalaya, with particular reference to the use of Khasi traditional medicine and to identify the social determinants of the health seeking behaviours with respect to availability, accessibility, acceptability, efficacy and cost ii) to make recommendations and construct a possible model for the integration of Khasi traditional medicine with allopathic medicine services in rural Meghalaya.

Method: A descriptive ‘health-seeking behaviour’ survey of women from representative villages in the Khasi Hills will be conducted using both quantitative and qualitative methods for obtaining baseline data. For the qualitative studies, a sample of key informants for in-depth interviews will be identified, and a few focus group discussions will be conducted.  Interviews with traditional medicine practitioners in the selected villages will be done, so as to determine general approaches to diagnosis, treatment and referral patterns and also to seek their views on integration.

This research is being done as part of a DrPH at London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine under the PHFI-UKC Wellcome Trust Capacity Building Programme.

PhD Scholar: Sandra Albert
Supervisor: Lalit Dandona (India), Diana Lockwood & John Porter (UK)