Gendered care at the margins: Ebola, gender, and caregiving practices in Uganda's border districts.

In July 2019, Ebola in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) was declared a public health emergency of international concern and neighbouring countries were put on high alert. This paper examines the intersections of gender, caregiving, and livelihood practices in Uganda's border districts that emerged as key factors to consider in preparedness and response. This paper is based on an anthropological study of the Ebola context among Bantu cultures. We report on data from focus group discussions and key informant interviews with various sectors of the community. The study identified intersecting themes reported here: (1) women as primary caregivers in this context; and (2) women as providers, often in occupations that increase vulnerability to Ebola. Findings demonstrate the role that women play inside and outside the home as caregivers of the sick and during burials, and intersections with livelihood-seeking strategies. Because women's caregiving is largely unpaid, women face a double burden of work as they seek other livelihood strategies that sometimes increase vulnerability to Ebola. Epidemic response should address these intersections and the context-specific vulnerabilities of caregivers; it should also be localised and community-centred and able to attend to the cultural as well as the economic needs of a community.

Challenges to Ebola preparedness during an ongoing outbreak: An analysis of borderland livelihoods and trust in Uganda.

Ebola Virus Disease in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) was declared a public health emergency of international concern on July 17, 2019. The first case to cross the border into Uganda in June 2019 demonstrates the importance of better understanding border dynamics in a context of Ebola. This paper adopts a political economy approach to contextualize epidemic response programs conducted in moderate- and high-risk border districts in Uganda, through a qualitative study with 287 participants. To that end, our aim was to describe the historical underpinnings of the borderlands context; the role of livelihood strategies in constraining risk avoidance decisions; and the dynamics of trust in authority figures, including health workers. This paper reports that border communities are highly connected, for a variety of social and economic reasons. These daily realities are in direct opposition to guidance to limit travel during an active Ebola epidemic. We argue that an ability to limit movement is constrained by the economic need to seek livelihood strategies wherever that may be. Moreover, border regions are populated by communities with long-standing distrust in authority figures, particularly in fishing areas. This distrust spills over with consequences for Ebola prevention and control activities. This research indexes the importance of tailoring Ebola programming and policies to consider the political and economic dynamics of borderlands.

Innate health threat among a visibly hidden immigrant group: a formative field data analysis for HIV/AIDS prevention among Zimbabwean workers in Botswana.

As a result of the collapse of the national economy and political instability, Zimbabwe has experienced a diaspora in recent years. Although Zimbabweans are now the largest immigrant group in most sub-Saharan countries, Zimbabwean immigrants are a mostly illegal and socioeconomically marginalized population. This study explores the lives of Zimbabwean workers in Botswana from a health communication perspective and provides suggestions for accelerating the diffusion of HIV/AIDS prevention information and practices among the target population. In particular, this ethnographic report portrays how the Zimbabwean workers in Botswana make sense of their surroundings and perceive information on HIV/AIDS prevention and other public health risks. Field data analysis highlights several communication features among the immigrants, including reliance on interpersonal communication, high rate of mobile phone adoption, inaccurate public awareness on HIV/AIDS and prevention messages, and stagnated communication with health care services. By connecting Dervin's sensemaking theory to Roger's diffusion of innovations theory, the suggestions from this study can be applied to design HIV/AIDS prevention interventions for the immigrants and socioeconomically marginalized groups.