Perceptions of COVID-19 in faith communities in DR Congo
Emma Wild-Wood,
Yossa Way,
Amuda Baba,
Sadiki Kangamina,
Jean-Benoit Falisse,
Liz Grant and
Nigel Pearson
Journal of Eastern African Studies, 2023, vol. 17, issue 1-2, 79-100
Abstract:
This article explores the perceptions of COVID-19 among faith communities in north-eastern DR Congo and their intersection with public health responses to disease outbreaks. In a situation of a political and economic insecurity and significant unaddressed health needs, faith communities have a strong trusted public presence and offer resilience in the face of political insecurity, limited state intervention and outbreaks of disease. Semi-structured interviews of members, leaders and medical professionals from seven faith communities in Ituri and North-Kivu were analysed using a thematic framework. The article demonstrates that faith communities and their leaders have a range of opinions on the causes of and responses to COVID-19 that illuminate long term trends in a complex faith-health landscape. It identifies that all faith communities have spiritual responses to disease. Some of those responses cohere with public health messages. Others run counter to them. It argues that understanding the nature, range and variability of these perceptions and their impact on public behaviour is valuable to enable those engaged in public health to work with trusted, resilient communities even where their perceptions of disease are contradictory.
Date: 2023
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:
Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/17531055.2023.2235659 (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:taf:rjeaxx:v:17:y:2023:i:1-2:p:79-100
Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/rjea20
DOI: 10.1080/17531055.2023.2235659
Access Statistics for this article
Journal of Eastern African Studies is currently edited by Jim Robert Brennan
More articles in Journal of Eastern African Studies from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().