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      • HARVEST
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      Searching for a Cure: Health Care Behaviour Among the Q'eqchi' Maya in Southern Belize

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      VRETTAS-THESIS-2020.pdf (1.811Mb)
      Date
      2021-01-17
      Author
      Vrettas, Demi
      ORCID
      0000-0001-9422-2517
      Type
      Thesis
      Degree Level
      Masters
      Metadata
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      Abstract
      This thesis explores the health care behaviour of Q’eqchi’ Maya community members living in the Indian Creek village in southern Belize. Using an ethnographic approach based on three months of participation and interviews, this thesis focuses on how Q’eqchi’ villagers evaluate the effectiveness of practitioners and interventions, how they make treatment decisions, and their overall patterns of health care behaviour when an episode of sickness arises. It contends that members of this Indigenous community equally value the medical practice of both Q’eqchi’ and biomedical practitioners, and that they select between health care alternatives pragmatically, abiding by a cost-effectiveness analysis based on a specific social, cultural, and economic context. By showing how the involvement of local realities is necessary to improve health outcomes, this thesis identifies possible pitfalls of current international and Belizean models of care for Q’eqchi’ communities living in Belize, and provides recommendations that must be addressed in future health care research and planning.
      Degree
      Master of Arts (M.A.)
      Department
      Archaeology and Anthropology
      Program
      Anthropology
      Supervisor
      Waldram, James B.
      Committee
      Downe, Pamela J.; Abonyi, Sylvia; Lambert, Simon J.; Nomokonova, Tatiana
      Copyright Date
      December 2020
      URI
      http://hdl.handle.net/10388/13206
      Subject
      Belize
      Q'eqchi' Maya
      Well-being
      Sickness
      Medical Knowledge
      Traditional Practitioners
      Traditional Medicine
      Health Care
      Decision-making
      Care-seeking
      Pragmatism
      Ethnography
      Medical Anthropology
      Indigenous Rights
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      • Graduate Theses and Dissertations
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