Religion and Re-Articulations: Exploring Health-Seeking Behavior of Diabetes Patients from the Jamestown and Ushertown Districts, Ghana

Science Center A155

Diabetes and other non-communicable diseases are not well-known or remain undiagnosed in many Sub-Saharan regions of Africa, unlike increasingly-combated communicable diseases like Malaria and HIV/AIDS. Yet as prevalence rates of particularly Type II Diabetes have risen in countries like Ghana, the patient's socioeconomic status indirectly affects their religious and contextual health-seeking choices, described by some scholars as a. Unfortunately, little research substantially explores and reveals why and how patients enact certain health-seeking behavior. In result, my research used field researchers' expertise from the University of Ghana, simple field observation, and in-depth interviews to explore (1) the history of the patient’s Diabetic condition and religious affiliation(s), (2) the sociological conditions indirectly impacting their health-seeking, and (3) social relations directly affecting their health-seeking. The study first traces the vast and inextricable cultural connections between holistic health and religion. It then reveals that mainly length of disease, family, income, and religious beliefs significantly affect the personal and religio-contextual choices of patients. By conclusion, Ghana's susceptible and aging urban population must be met with a prepared system which seeks to prevent the growth of non-communicable diseases and to similarly understand the complexities of the patient's health-seeking choices.