Australian National University, Canberra, Australia.
University of Newcastle, Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia.
Western Pac Surveill Response J. 2024 Sep 4;15(3):1-5. doi: 10.5365/wpsar.2024.15.3.1171. eCollection 2024 Jul-Sep.
Many communities refer to sorcery or witchcraft to explain misfortunes such as sickness, death and disability. The effects of these beliefs on public health service delivery have long been overlooked. Beliefs in sorcery and witchcraft are significant challenges for health-care workers to understand to deliver better health outcomes and avoid inadvertently triggering accusations of witchcraft that may lead to violence.
This paper examines the impacts of accusations of sorcery and related violence on the provision of health care in Papua New Guinea.
The discussion focuses on a workshop held in Papua New Guinea in September 2022 with health extension officers on the topic of health-care delivery and sorcery accusations.
The workshop confirmed the challenges that beliefs in sorcery and witchcraft present for health extension officers and suggested several strategies that could be used to navigate them. It identified several possible future measures that those on the front line of community health-care delivery considered most important in responding to the issue. These included educating health-care workers on how to effectively address sorcery beliefs when delivering health care and developing communication techniques on the causes of death and sickness that avoid triggering sorcery accusations.
This paper reviews the findings of the workshop in the broader context of the effects of beliefs in witchcraft on public health delivery globally. Because of the close connections between sorcery beliefs and health, equipping health-care workers and field epidemiologists with strategies to address these beliefs effectively is critical to delivering better health care, facilitating timely response to public health events, and helping to prevent violence related to sorcery accusations. This need exists in all countries where sorcery beliefs related to health, illness, disability and death are prevalent.
许多社区将巫术或魔法归因于疾病、死亡和残疾等不幸事件。这些信仰对公共卫生服务提供的影响长期以来被忽视。医疗保健工作者很难理解这些信仰，这对他们提供更好的健康结果和避免无意中引发巫术指控构成了重大挑战，因为这些指控可能导致暴力行为。
本文探讨了巫术指控和相关暴力对巴布亚新几内亚提供医疗保健的影响。
讨论集中在 2022 年 9 月在巴布亚新几内亚举行的一次关于医疗保健提供和巫术指控的卫生推广官员研讨会上。
研讨会证实了巫术和魔法信仰对卫生推广官员带来的挑战，并提出了几种可能的策略，以帮助他们应对这些挑战。它确定了一些可能的未来措施，这些措施被认为是社区医疗保健一线人员在应对这一问题时最重要的措施。其中包括教育医疗保健工作者在提供医疗保健时如何有效应对巫术信仰，以及开发关于死亡和疾病原因的沟通技巧，以避免引发巫术指控。
本文在全球范围内巫术信仰对公共卫生服务提供的影响的更广泛背景下审查了研讨会的结果。由于巫术信仰与健康之间的密切联系，为医疗保健工作者和现场流行病学家提供有效应对这些信仰的策略对于提供更好的医疗保健、促进对公共卫生事件的及时应对以及帮助预防与巫术指控相关的暴力至关重要。在巫术信仰与健康、疾病、残疾和死亡有关的所有国家都存在这种需求。
