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Data from a sample interview survey conducted in Accra in 1982 show that there is a very high level of knowledge of contraceptive methods among mothers aged 25–39 years (92%). However, only about 41% of the women had ever used any form of contraception, and only 18% were using modern methods at the time of the study. This is low for a city where an official family planning programme has been in operation for 15 years, even when the confounding effects of availability and accessibility of services have been controlled for. Suggestions are made for increasing the effectiveness of such programmes.
'HIV/AIDS, Illness and African Well-Being' highlights the specific health problems facing Africa today, most particularly the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Taking a multi-disciplinary approach, the book presents not only various health crises, but also the larger historical and contemporary contexts within which they must be understood and managed. Chapters offering analysis of specific illness case studies, and the effects of globalization and underdevelopment on health, provide an overarching context in which HIV/AIDS and other health-related concerns can be understood. The contributions on the HIV/AIDS pandemic grapple with the complications of national and international policies, the sociological effects of the pandemic, and policy options for the future. 'HIV/AIDS, Illness and African Well-Being' thus provides a comprehensive view of health issues currently plaguing the continent and the many different ways that scholars are interpreting the health outlook in Africa. Contributors: Obijiofor Aginam, Yacouba Banhoro, Richard Beilock, Charity Chenga, Mandi Chikombero, Kaley Creswell, Freek Cronjé, Frank N. F. Dadzie, Gabriel B. Fosu, Stephen Obeng-Manu Gyimah, Kathryn H. Jacobsen, W. Bediako Lamousé-Smith, William N. Mkanta, Gerald M. Mumma, Kalala Ngalamulume, Raphael Chijioke Njoku, Cecilia S. Obeng, Iruka N. Okeke, Akpen Philip, Baffour K. Takyi, Melissa K. Van Dyke, Sophie Wertheimer, Ellen A. S. Whitney. Toyin Falola is the Francis Nalle Higgenbothom Centennial Professor of History and Distinuished Teaching at the University of Texas at Austin. Matthew M. Heaton is a PhD candidate at the University of Texas at Austin.
Studies on the health of Africans have increased substantially during the past couple of decades. For the most part, recent studies have concentrated on reproductive health issues, malaria, and HIV/AIDS. One health topic that is rarely addressed in African health research is disability. Not much is known about prevalence, determinants, and impact of disability among African populations. While disability is generally associated with reduced labor force participation, it also has social, cultural, and political consequences. As governments adopt policies and institute programs to ensure the full participation of the population with disability in all national activities, they often face the challenge of identifying the population with disability, and the extent and type of disability. There is, indeed, a great need to understand the magnitude of the problem in order to develop intervention programs.
Since the 1982 United Nations World Program of Action Concerning Disabled Persons, many countries have affirmed the importance of information on disability for developing programs and policies that promote the threefold objectives of prevention of disability, rehabilitation, and realization of the full participation of disabled persons in social life and economic development. Such information, however, is not being collected and analyzed on a regular basis. For this reason the UN recommended that disability should be included in national censuses in order to provide “a valuable source of information on the prevalence and distribution of disability in the population at national, regional, and local levels and give possibilities for its correlation with data on employment, level of education and other relevant variables collected in the census.”