Transferring Health Technology to South Africa: The Importance of Traditional African Culture

Thabo T Fako, J Gary Linn and Barbara E Brown

The Journal of Technology Transfer, 2000, vol. 25, issue 3, 299-305

Abstract: The transfer of new health technology to South Africa is occurring despite the fact that North American and European health care planners and entrepreneurs have a very limited understanding of traditional Black South African cultures which condition the health-related behaviors of the majority of the population. Consequently, relatively few people of African descent in this very diverse nation are, at least initially, benefiting from the new imported medical technology. This study gives an overview of traditional Black medicine in South Africa and, through the presentation of several case studies, discusses its implications for the societal adoption of new health technology received from the United States and other industrialized nations. The example of the successful application of cervical cancer exams in rural and urban clinics of the Eastern Cape is analyzed and institutional mechanisms that support successful transfer are identified. Copyright 2000 by Kluwer Academic Publishers

Date: 2000
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://journals.kluweronline.com/issn/0892-9912/contents link to full text (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:kap:jtecht:v:25:y:2000:i:3:p:299-305

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... nt/journal/10961/PS2

Access Statistics for this article

The Journal of Technology Transfer is currently edited by Albert N. Link, Donald S. Siegel, Barry Bozeman and Simon Mosey

More articles in The Journal of Technology Transfer from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().