IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v73y2011i10p1498-1507.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Relying on nature’s pharmacy in rural Burkina Faso: Empirical evidence of the determinants of traditional medicine consumption

Author

Listed:
  • Pouliot, Mariève

Abstract

Traditional medicine is believed to constitute a crucial healthcare option for poor or remote households in developing countries that have limited access to allopathic medicine and/or a strong cultural attachment to traditional medicine. However, little research has been performed on medicinal plant reliance in developing countries, and the determinants of medicinal plant consumption at the household level in these countries have not been empirically studied. Quantifying the use of traditional medicine at the household level is, therefore, essential to the development of sustainable healthcare policies in the developing world. This paper quantifies household-level use of traditional medicine and identifies determinants of the choice of traditional treatment in the south central region of Burkina Faso. Structured household interviews (n = 205) were conducted in nine villages of rural Burkina Faso from November 2007 to November 2008 and in November 2009 to collect data on household characteristics (e.g., income, education, demographics), illness frequencies, illness types, and treatment strategies employed. Comprehensive analysis of treatment choice was performed through bivariate analyses. Results indicate that traditional medicine was primarily relied on by middle-aged individuals from relatively uneducated households who were living in villages with limited allopathic medicine service provision. Moreover, a differential approach to medicinal plant consumption was used to distinguish between patients using traditional medicine as a self-care treatment and those visiting a traditional healer. Although poorer households were shown to use traditional medicine as a self-treatment, traditional healers’ services were relied on by wealthier households.

Suggested Citation

  • Pouliot, Mariève, 2011. "Relying on nature’s pharmacy in rural Burkina Faso: Empirical evidence of the determinants of traditional medicine consumption," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 73(10), pages 1498-1507.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:73:y:2011:i:10:p:1498-1507
    DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2011.08.037
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953611005557
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.socscimed.2011.08.037?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lambert, J. & Srivastava, J. & Vietmeyer, N., 1997. "Medicinal Plants, Rescuing Global Heritage," Papers 355, World Bank - Technical Papers.
    2. Wiseman, Virginia & Scott, Anthony & Conteh, Lesong & McElroy, Brendan & Stevens, Warren, 2008. "Determinants of provider choice for malaria treatment: Experiences from The Gambia," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 67(4), pages 487-496, August.
    3. Sauerborn, R. & Nougtara, A. & Diesfeld, H. J., 1989. "Low utilization of community health workers: Results from a household interview survey in Burkina Faso," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 29(10), pages 1163-1174, January.
    4. Ahmed, Syed Masud & Adams, Alayne M. & Chowdhury, Mushtaque & Bhuiya, Abbas, 2000. "Gender, socioeconomic development and health-seeking behaviour in Bangladesh," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 51(3), pages 361-371, August.
    5. Kroeger, Axel, 1983. "Anthropological and socio-medical health care research in developing countries," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 17(3), pages 147-161, January.
    6. Develay, A. & Sauerborn, R. & Diesfeld, H. J., 1996. "Utilization of health care in an African urban area: Results from a household survey in Ouagadougou, Burkina-Faso," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 43(11), pages 1611-1619, December.
    7. Leonard, Kenneth L., 2003. "African traditional healers and outcome-contingent contracts in health care," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(1), pages 1-22, June.
    8. Sauerborn, R. & Nougtara, A. & Hien, M. & Diesfeld, H. J., 1996. "Seasonal variations of household costs of illness in Burkina Faso," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 43(3), pages 281-290, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Bir Chhetri & Helle Larsen & Carsten Smith-Hall, 2015. "Environmental resources reduce income inequality and the prevalence, depth and severity of poverty in rural Nepal," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 17(3), pages 513-530, June.
    2. P. M. Amegbor, 2017. "An Assessment of Care-Seeking Behavior in Asikuma-Odoben-Brakwa District: A Triple Pluralistic Health Sector Approach," SAGE Open, , vol. 7(2), pages 21582440177, June.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Sato, Azusa, 2012. "Does socio-economic status explain use of modern and traditional health care services?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 75(8), pages 1450-1459.
    2. Anne Case & Alicia Menendez & Cally Ardington, 2005. "Health Seeking Behavior in Northern KwaZulu-Natal," Working Papers 165, Princeton University, Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Research Program in Development Studies..
    3. Sato, Azusa, 2012. "Do Inequalities in Health Care Utilization in Developing Countries Change When We Take into Account Traditional Medicines?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 40(11), pages 2275-2289.
    4. Pouliot, Mariève & Treue, Thorsten, 2013. "Rural People’s Reliance on Forests and the Non-Forest Environment in West Africa: Evidence from Ghana and Burkina Faso," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 180-193.
    5. Dong, Hengjin & Mugisha, Frederick & Gbangou, Adjima & Kouyate, Bocar & Sauerborn, Rainer, 2004. "The feasibility of community-based health insurance in Burkina Faso," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 69(1), pages 45-53, July.
    6. Leonard, Kenneth L, 2007. "Learning in Health Care: Evidence of Learning about Clinician Quality in Tanzania," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 55(3), pages 531-555, April.
    7. Dong, Hengjin & Kouyate, Bocar & Cairns, John & Sauerborn, Rainer, 2005. "Inequality in willingness-to-pay for community-based health insurance," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 72(2), pages 149-156, May.
    8. P. M. Amegbor, 2017. "An Assessment of Care-Seeking Behavior in Asikuma-Odoben-Brakwa District: A Triple Pluralistic Health Sector Approach," SAGE Open, , vol. 7(2), pages 21582440177, June.
    9. Majumder, Amlan, 2014. "Economics of health care utilisation: a study of self-reported morbidity and health seeking patterns in the districts of Cooch Behar and Jalpaiguri, West Bengal, India," EconStor Books, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, number 110899, May.
    10. Alfredo Paloyo & Arndt Reichert, 2017. "Biting Back at Malaria: Assessing Health-service Providers' Compliance with Treatment Guidelines," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 21(3), pages 591-626, August.
    11. Hidayat, Budi, 2007. "Are there differences between unconditional and conditional demand estimates? implications for future research and policy," MPRA Paper 30196, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    12. Patrick Sakdapolrak & Thomas Seyler & Christina Ergler, 2013. "Burden of direct and indirect costs of illness: Empirical findings from slum settlements in Chennai, South India," Progress in Development Studies, , vol. 13(2), pages 135-151, April.
    13. Tarek Drissi Bouzaidi & Aziz Ragbi, 2024. "An analysis of the trend towards universal health coverage and access to healthcare in Morocco," Health Economics Review, Springer, vol. 14(1), pages 1-15, December.
    14. Chaudhury, Nazmul & Hammer, Jeffrey S., 2003. "Ghost doctors - absenteeism in Bangladeshi health facilities," Policy Research Working Paper Series 3065, The World Bank.
    15. Zombré, David & De Allegri, Manuela & Ridde, Valéry, 2017. "Immediate and sustained effects of user fee exemption on healthcare utilization among children under five in Burkina Faso: A controlled interrupted time-series analysis," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 179(C), pages 27-35.
    16. Grant Miller & Kimberly Singer Babiarz, 2013. "Pay-for-Performance Incentives in Low- and Middle-Income Country Health Programs," NBER Working Papers 18932, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Haenssgen, Marco J. & Ariana, Proochista, 2017. "The Social Implications of Technology Diffusion: Uncovering the Unintended Consequences of People’s Health-Related Mobile Phone Use in Rural India and China," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 286-304.
    18. Jehu-Appiah, Caroline & Aryeetey, Genevieve & Spaan, Ernst & de Hoop, Thomas & Agyepong, Irene & Baltussen, Rob, 2011. "Equity aspects of the National Health Insurance Scheme in Ghana: Who is enrolling, who is not and why?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 72(2), pages 157-165, January.
    19. Sheikh Jamal Hossain & Bharati Rani Roy & Aniqa Tasnim Hossain & Fardina Mehrin & SM Mulk Uddin Tipu & Fahmida Tofail & Shams El Arifeen & Thach Tran & Jane Fisher & Jena Hamadani, 2020. "Prevalence of Maternal Postpartum Depression, Health-Seeking Behavior and Out of Pocket Payment for Physical Illness and Cost Coping Mechanism of the Poor Families in Bangladesh: A Rural Community-Bas," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(13), pages 1-13, July.
    20. Su, Tin Tin & Sanon, Mamadou & Flessa, Steffen, 2007. "Assessment of indirect cost-of-illness in a subsistence farming society by using different valuation methods," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 83(2-3), pages 353-362, October.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:73:y:2011:i:10:p:1498-1507. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/315/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.