Management and socio-economics of tsetse control

Investigating Knowledge and Attitudes

Knowledge of trypanosomiasis and the role of tsetse is best investigated using a qualitative, participatory approach. Papers by Catley and his colleagues (2001a, 2001b, 2002) discuss at length both the general issues of ethnoveterinary knowledge and particular methods to investigate it, including matrix scoring of:

• Disease signs by indigenous disease name

• Disease causes by indigenous disease name

• Disease occurrence by season

• Triangulations of participatory investigation by laboratory tests and post mortems

Attitudes can be investigated using a variety of methods, including semi-structured interviews, ranking techniques, particularly for comparing trypanosomiasis with other problems and more formal questionnaire surveys. The latter can incorporate questions on attitudes (e.g. “for what reasons might you be unwilling to use pour-ons?” which should allow multiple responses. In certain situations it is worth trying questions on whether informants agree or disagree with sample statements, such as “I prefer using money to cure trypanosomiasis than to control tsetse”), but information from all such questions needs to be treated with great caution.

Ideally, knowledge of attitudes will be derived from real familiarity with a community gained from working with it in a participatory manner of an extended period. Unless and until that is possible, it is recommended to work with a variety of methods, using triangulation between them.

References

Catley, A et al. (2001) “Participatory diagnosis of a chronic wasting disease in cattel in southern Sudan” Preventive Veterinary Medicine 51, 161-181.

Catley, A et al. (2002a) “Participatory investigations of bovine trypanosomiasis in Tana River District Kenya” Medical and Veterinary Entomology 16:55-66

Catley, A & Marriner, J. (2002b). Where there is no data: Participatory approaches to veterinary epidemiology in pastoral areas of the Horn of Africa. IIED Dryland Programme Issues Paper no.110, IIED, London. Available here.

Other resources on participatory epidemiology and indigenous veterinary knowledge are available on the CAPE website at:

http://www.eldis.org/pastoralism/cape/publications_epidemiology.htm and

http://www.eldis.org/pastoralism/cape/publications_ik.htm