How the Fight Against Ebola Tested a Culture's Traditions

When the rise of Ebola in West Africa strict protocols when handling those who were dying or had died from the disease, public health officials began working with anthropologists and other social scientists to increase trust and influence people’s willingness to seek treatment. At the center of the success was the social scientist's recommendations for burial services which addressed concerns about first responders disrespecting the dead. Today, these social scientists are providing similar consult for the Covid-19 pandemic.

A research center in rural Bangladesh has continuously collected health data for decades, thereby improving public health in the region and serving as a control population for vaccine programs.

As coronavirus spread throughout the White Mountain Apache tribe in Arizona residents on the reservation turned to contact tracing – not to slow the spread, but to identify those who were high risk and may be infected with the virus, before they became too ill to recover. This strategy focused on testing blood oxygen levels and has resulted in a far lower mortality rate among the tribe as compared to the state. Now, researchers think it could serve as a model for other "hard-to-reach" communities.

Community organizers are stepping in to help disseminate vital public health information to underserved communities. In Brazil, social organizers like the those behind Our Mothers’ Lives, an organization advocating for paid leave for domestic workers during the COVID-19 crisis, and local journalists, who debunk myths via podcasts like Manda Notícias (Send the News), have taken an important role in conveying public health messages to Brazil’s favela communities. These communicators utilize social media, as well as audio messaging campaigns, handouts, and reporting to inform the communities they serve.

India was declared polio-free in 2014 after several years of work by health staff who traveled across the country to distribute the vaccine. One key part of the strategy included efforts by the government to recruit and mobilize volunteers from across the country to assist health care workers in locating the children who needed the vaccine and building trust with their caregivers.

For disease eradication campaigns to succeed, public health officials need to interact with the public. In Pakistan, the front line against polio is comprised of women who reach out to directly to families with young children, often at major transportation centers. The women engage in this type of public health awareness as a way to navigate around extremist violence and the adverse consequences of a US fake vaccination campaign. The women focus on building rapport with families, and then administering vaccines.

Through a co-management system, which has successfully rehabilitated degraded watersheds, the 2015 Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes-Montana Water Rights Compact has restored tribal sovereignty over their waters. This has brought bull trout back to their native streams and reconnected tribal members to traditional lifeways while maintaining water access for existing agricultural users.

Teams of Community Direct Distributors (CDD) are leading drug distribution campaigns to prevent and eliminate neglected tropical diseases in hard-to-reach, rural areas. These CDDs are members of the community they serve and are trained to educate the locals on disease prevention and administer the drugs themselves. With the CDDs’ help, several states have already eliminated some diseases and greatly reduced the spread of others.

In collaboration with local government and organizations, The Carter Center launched an initiative to curb the spread of neglected tropical diseases, like river blindness. Throughout the initiative, the Center provided health education to rural communities most affected by the disease and also led a mass drug administration of Mectizan, which is known to kill the parasite that causes river blindness. Over 20 years, the Center administered 27 million doses of the medication, effectively eliminating the disease.

At the University of Minnesota Medical School's Duluth Campus, the Center of American Indian and Minority Health provides a space for Indigenous students to connect with one another, honor their traditions, and find support in a challenging academic setting. The school, which also requires eight hours of instruction on treating Native Americans, has produced more Indigenous medical graduates than almost any other in the United States.