'Hawa' and 'resistensiya': local health knowledge and the COVID-19 pandemic in the Philippines.
Anthropol Med
; 28(4): 576-591, 2021 Dec.
Article
in English
| MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-2272079
ABSTRACT
Understanding people's concepts of illness and health is key to crafting policies and communications campaigns to address a particular medical concern. This paper gathers cultural knowledge on infectious disease causation, prevention, and treatment the Philippines that are particularly relevant for the COVID-19 pandemic, and analyzes their implications for public health. This paper draws from ethnographic work (e.g. participant observation, interviews, conversations, virtual ethnography) carried out individually by each of the two authors from February to September 2020. The data was analyzed in relation to the anthropological literature on local health knowledge in the Philippines. We find that notions of hawa (contagion) and resistensiya (immunity) inform people's views of illness causation as well as their preventive practices - including the use of face masks and 'vitamins' and other pharmaceuticals, as well as the ways in which they negotiate prescriptions of face mask use and physical distancing. These perceptions and practices go beyond biomedical knowledge and are continuously being shaped by people's everyday experiences and circulations of knowledge in traditional and social media. Our study reveals that people's novel practices reflect recurrent, familiar, and long-held concepts - such as the moral undertones of hawa and experimentation inherent in resistensiya. Policies and communications efforts should acknowledge and anticipate how these notions may serve as either barriers or facilitators to participatory care and improved health outcomes.
Keywords
Full text:
Available
Collection:
International databases
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Pandemics
/
COVID-19
Type of study:
Observational study
/
Prognostic study
/
Qualitative research
Limits:
Humans
Country/Region as subject:
Asia
Language:
English
Journal:
Anthropol Med
Journal subject:
Anthropology
/
Medicine
Year:
2021
Document Type:
Article
Affiliation country:
13648470.2021.1893980
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