Public Health Information in Vietnam
Dear List,
I'm an anthropology masters student looking for information about and studies of public health information in Vietnam. I'm particularly interested in what information and advice Vietnamese authorities give people relating to pharmaceuticals, such as consulting someone with medical qualifications, getting a prescription, the risks of self-medication, antibiotic resistance, domestic and imported pharmaceuticals, and so on.
My thesis is on Vietnamese rural mothers' knowledge of medicine and official/state perceptions of lay knowledge about medicine. My fieldwork data (from a rural commune in Nghe An) shows an emphasis on the authority of professional and scientific knowledge about medicine. I would like to know to what extent official public health campaigns and discourses draw on notions of professional and scientific knowledge.
Thank you in advance.
Kind regards,
Hanne Elsnab
Have you checked out the book Familiar Medicine by David Craig?
It might be right up your alley.
Also, it might be worth looking at the Hanoi School of Public Health website to see if any of the professors or students there are working on similar issues.
I also know there are articles in various health related academic journals that deal with treatment seeking behaviors among different groups within Vietnam.
Good luck.
-Jon McIntyre
Dear Hanne and list,
Have you tried Enfance: Etat des lieux Vietnam (l'Harmattan 1998). As the title indicates the book is focused on children but it probably has something on the mothers and definitely on medicine and public health. If I remember correctly it was psychiatric medicine but there might be more.
Best,
Christina Firpo
Here's the citation to that French title; you can get it thru InterLibrary
Loan from your library (this from Univ of Calif - Irvine library):
Enfance, Etat des lieux : Vietnam au coeur de la francophonie / sous la
direction de Charlyne Vasseur-Fauconnet
Published Paris : L'Harmattan, c1998
LOCATION CALL NO. STATUS
Langson Library BF721 .E56 1998 NOT CHCKD OUT
Description 620 p. : ill. ; 23 cm
Subj-lcsh Child psychology -- Congresses
Child psychiatry -- Congresses
Child psychology -- Vietnam -- Congresses
Child psychiatry -- Vietnam -- Congresses
Other author Vasseur-Fauconnet, Charlyne
Note(s) Includes bibliographical references (p. 582-584)
ISBN 2738470335
Call # BF721 .E56 1998
Publisher site:
http://www.harmattan.fr/index.asp?navig=catalogue&obj=livre&no=755
recto (cover photo):
http://www.harmattan.fr/catalogue/couv/2738470335r.jpg
verso (more on book):
http://www.harmattan.fr/catalogue/couv/2738470335v.jpg
It's listed in catalog as this title:
VIETNAM : ENFANCE ETAT DES LIEUX
Au coeur de la francophonie
Sous la direction de Charline Vasseur
GENERALITES, OUVRAGE DE SYNTHESE ASIE
Des professionnels de l'enfance, ont voulu montrer que la francophonie
n'etait pas seulement un lieu d'change et de debats economiques mais
qu'elle portait en elle des valeurs educatives, une approche commune des
problematiques de l'enfance. A Hanoi et Hochiminh ville, quatre cents
vietnamiens et quatre vingt francophones , tous professionnels de
l'enfance ont debattu de leurs experiences, de leurs difficultes dans le
travail aupres des enfants.
ISBN : 2-7384-7033-5 1998 620 pages
Prix editeur : 44 / 289 FF
Daniel C. Tsang