Erin Huff

My ORCA project changed considerably from the time I applied for the grant, to when I stepped off of the airplane back in the U.S. after researching in Ghana. I initially wanted to study elder care in Ghana, but after reviewing the resources I had available to me in Ghana, I decided to study the experiences of Ghanaian diabetics. My research – which I reported in a paper entitled “Knowledge, Pain, and Poverty: Insights from Sixteen Ghanaian Diabetics” – sought to chronicle the daily experiences diabetics face in Ghana. Specifically, I was looking to see what kind of health care Ghanaian diabetics were receiving, how their illness affected their daily lives, and how the experience of a diabetic in Ghana was different from that of a diabetic in the United States.

I used ethnographic interviews to gather the bulk of my data about diabetes in Ghana. I interviewed sixteen different diabetics, of all different ages. These diabetics were all living in one of two towns in the suburbs of Kumasi, Ghana. I recruited my first few participants through a friend, and after I started interviewing them in their towns, people heard what I was doing and told me about other diabetics that I could interview. I interviewed each participant several different times. The questions I asked revolved around several main points. First, I wanted to know how each person was diagnosed with diabetes, what led up to the diagnoses, and who diagnosed them. I then wanted to know what they were doing to treat their diabetes. I asked each participant how their life had changed from the time before they had diabetes, to the present. I asked about what kind of diet they followed, how they paid for treatments, and if there illness affected their ability to work or do other daily activities. Over the course of the interviews, it became increasingly obvious that family interaction was a huge part of a Ghanaian’s daily life, so I altered my interviewing to ask questions about how diabetes affected their family life. I also tried to find out how much the diabetics’ family members knew about their illness, and what role the family members played in caring for the diabetic.

My discoveries whilst interviewing these sixteen diabetics were enlightening. Ghana’s rich tradition of medical pluralism played an enormous part in how the diabetics I interviewed were being treated. Several of my interviewees received no biomedical care, but instead chose to receive care from traditional healers, especially herbalists. It seemed that many patients chose traditional medicine over biomedicine, not necessarily because it worked better, but often because it was less expensive. I found that absorbing the exorbitant costs of diabetes medication and supplies is a paramount issue for Ghanaian diabetics and their families. Many of the diabetics I interviewed often had to choose between buying medicine for themselves, or feeding their children.

The Ghanaian diabetic experience is complex and distinctive. Future research about diabetes in Ghana should focus on the unique role that traditional medical practitioners, pharmacists, and families play in initial treatment of the disease. Research must also be done on alternative treatments for diabetes. More research about the basic and daily needs and activities of the Ghanaian diabetic could also be beneficial to health care practitioners in developing appropriate treatment regimens for their patients.

As diabetes prevalence rates rise, Ghana will face unique challenges in providing health care to its diabetic populations. This study has only scratched the surface as to the nature of some of those challenges. Among the most pressing will be that of providing adequate health care to all economic and social classes of diabetics. In doing so, Ghana will need to somehow provide its people with access to diabetes medication, as well as to doctors who are properly trained to deal with the illness. Ghana will also need to address the issues of culturally appropriate diabetes education that takes into consideration traditional views of disease etiology and treatment. Utilizing traditional medical practitioners in this area will be key in educating populations that might not otherwise be approachable. As Ghana continues to develop, and as its diabetes prevalence rates continue to rise, ethnographic research such as this will be paramount in providing vital information to assist those struggling to curb a diabetes epidemic and in developing new and appropriate measures to treat it.