Maria Booker
Things in Accra are beginning to wrap up, I think. I received the reported cases of malaria that I was hoping for, but I have yet to make sense of it. The information comes with some serious limitations. There is no demographic reporting in the country, each clinic reports its malaria cases regardless of where the patients are from. I think it’s relatively easy to assume that most of the people who are sick will visit the clinic closest to them to receive treatment, but that may not always be the case. There is one clinic in particular that was opened as a clinic for police, military, and security personnel and their descendants. The clinic changed shortly after opening to accept members of the public as patients, but there is no report that separates civilians from state employees, since I am only interested in the people that actually live in the community. Another thing is that some communities don’t have clinics, so the clinic caters to two or three populations, which will not help me prove my point that community members in one area have higher malaria cases!
My first thought yesterday was to survey the populations, but when I contacted the IRB, I was told that I had to submit an application to the chair for review, and this may take some time to get approval. In addition to this, my host told me that she wouldn’t visit one community in particular with me and I would have to find someone else to go with me. She wouldn’t come with me to my last visit to this community either, and an entomologist came with me to study mosquito habitats. I did feel threatened, but I thought it was the Nikon D5000 that was causing that. Either way, my hosts apprehension of visiting this community has me realizing that if a local feels threatened by a population, then there is no way in hell that I am going to put myself in a threatening situation. My husband recommended hiring a local to go out to the communities and do the surveys; I am still pondering this suggestion, mainly because I don’t want to put anyone else in danger. For now, I am nixing the survey idea.
I am going to type up what I can for my advisor to see if he thinks what I have is sufficient, but as of right now, I am very frustrated with this trip. If I had a better support structure, then I think things may be different, but overall I don’t think that Ghana is the place that you send someone to do independent research, I think this research would have been far stronger if there had been a group of people being hosted by an organization that offered structured support.