Infrastructure development brings immediate and obvious benefits to communities. What isn't as im... more Infrastructure development brings immediate and obvious benefits to communities. What isn't as immediately obvious is that such development can also open the way for negative changes - such as the spread of sexually transmitted diseases. This report examines the impact on the local people of an important infrastructure project in northwest Lao People's Democratic Republic - the upgrade of Route 3, which forms part of the Northern Economic Corridor linking Thailand with the People's Republic of China. The report also outlines the implications for future HIV mitigation programs, and recommends ways to ensure that future programs maximize the good that infrastructure development brings and minimize negative impacts.28 page(s)
Mental illness contributes hugely to global disease burden. Inadequate resources, limited access ... more Mental illness contributes hugely to global disease burden. Inadequate resources, limited access to services and pervasive stigma jointly foster its increasing severity, especially in resource-poor countries. Despite recognition that social determinants such as poverty, inequality and marginalization aggravate mental distress, minimal scrutiny has focused on the negative impact of targeted development schemes creating social and economic change that exacerbates mental health risks for poor people. This article examines the rise of mental disorders as an unwanted consequence of a new special economic zone being built in a border district in Northwest Thailand. Ethnographic data from villages surrounding the intended industrial hub was collected during six-months fieldwork in 2017 and 2018. Informants included public health staff in the community and district hospitals, villagers who had lost farming land, health volunteers and spirit healers. Using local narratives and hospital data to show an emergent vulnerability to anxiety, depression and suicide, I argue that global public health approaches seeking to decentralise mental health services and donor-driven mitigation guidelines fail to alleviate stressors for locals caught up in development's slipstream. In turn, distressed by land reclamation, debt, gambling and substance abuse, villagers turn to reinvigorated forms of spirit-healing for assistance in regaining a sense of well-being. In this context, I demonstrate that development schemes potential to affect the epidemiology of behavioral pathologies remains significantly under-addressed within rubrics of 'border-health'.
Introduction 1. Ethnicity, Captical and the Architecture of Mobile Hopes and Dreams 2. Frontiers ... more Introduction 1. Ethnicity, Captical and the Architecture of Mobile Hopes and Dreams 2. Frontiers and Embodied Ambitions 3. Special Zones - Anomalous Spaces 4. Intimate Safeguards and Affective Politics of the Precariat 5. Poiesis of the Intimate Encounter: Dormitory Exchanges and Bed-sit Affairs 6. First do no Harm
... primarily in northern remote mountain regions ■(26,800 hectares in 1998) with Luang Namtha ra... more ... primarily in northern remote mountain regions ■(26,800 hectares in 1998) with Luang Namtha ranking fifth behind the provinces of Phongsaly, Oudomxay, Hua Phan, Xieng Khouang, andLuang Prabang. ... out-migration can have a snowball effect resulting in the Rubber is also ...
ABSTRACT A monocausal bacteriological understanding of infectious disease orients tuberculosis co... more ABSTRACT A monocausal bacteriological understanding of infectious disease orients tuberculosis control efforts towards antimicrobial interventions. A bias towards technological solutions can leave multistranded public health and social interventions largely neglected. In the context of globalising biomedical approaches to infectious disease control, this ethnography-inspired review article reflects upon the implementation of rapid diagnostic technology in low- and middle-income countries. Fieldwork observations in Vietnam provided a stimulus for a critical review of the global rollout of tuberculosis diagnostic technology. To address local needs in tuberculosis control, health managers in resource-poor settings are readily cooperating with international donors to deploy novel diagnostic technologies throughout national tuberculosis programme facilities. Increasing investment in new diagnostic technologies is predicated on the supposition that these interventions will ameliorate disease outcomes. However, suboptimal treatment control persists even when accurate diagnostic technologies are available, suggesting that promotion of singular technological solutions can distract from addressing systemic change, without which disease susceptibility, propagation of infection, detection gaps, diagnostic delays, and treatment shortfalls persist.
Infrastructure development brings immediate and obvious benefits to communities. What isn't as im... more Infrastructure development brings immediate and obvious benefits to communities. What isn't as immediately obvious is that such development can also open the way for negative changes - such as the spread of sexually transmitted diseases. This report examines the impact on the local people of an important infrastructure project in northwest Lao People's Democratic Republic - the upgrade of Route 3, which forms part of the Northern Economic Corridor linking Thailand with the People's Republic of China. The report also outlines the implications for future HIV mitigation programs, and recommends ways to ensure that future programs maximize the good that infrastructure development brings and minimize negative impacts.28 page(s)
Mental illness contributes hugely to global disease burden. Inadequate resources, limited access ... more Mental illness contributes hugely to global disease burden. Inadequate resources, limited access to services and pervasive stigma jointly foster its increasing severity, especially in resource-poor countries. Despite recognition that social determinants such as poverty, inequality and marginalization aggravate mental distress, minimal scrutiny has focused on the negative impact of targeted development schemes creating social and economic change that exacerbates mental health risks for poor people. This article examines the rise of mental disorders as an unwanted consequence of a new special economic zone being built in a border district in Northwest Thailand. Ethnographic data from villages surrounding the intended industrial hub was collected during six-months fieldwork in 2017 and 2018. Informants included public health staff in the community and district hospitals, villagers who had lost farming land, health volunteers and spirit healers. Using local narratives and hospital data to show an emergent vulnerability to anxiety, depression and suicide, I argue that global public health approaches seeking to decentralise mental health services and donor-driven mitigation guidelines fail to alleviate stressors for locals caught up in development's slipstream. In turn, distressed by land reclamation, debt, gambling and substance abuse, villagers turn to reinvigorated forms of spirit-healing for assistance in regaining a sense of well-being. In this context, I demonstrate that development schemes potential to affect the epidemiology of behavioral pathologies remains significantly under-addressed within rubrics of 'border-health'.
Introduction 1. Ethnicity, Captical and the Architecture of Mobile Hopes and Dreams 2. Frontiers ... more Introduction 1. Ethnicity, Captical and the Architecture of Mobile Hopes and Dreams 2. Frontiers and Embodied Ambitions 3. Special Zones - Anomalous Spaces 4. Intimate Safeguards and Affective Politics of the Precariat 5. Poiesis of the Intimate Encounter: Dormitory Exchanges and Bed-sit Affairs 6. First do no Harm
... primarily in northern remote mountain regions ■(26,800 hectares in 1998) with Luang Namtha ra... more ... primarily in northern remote mountain regions ■(26,800 hectares in 1998) with Luang Namtha ranking fifth behind the provinces of Phongsaly, Oudomxay, Hua Phan, Xieng Khouang, andLuang Prabang. ... out-migration can have a snowball effect resulting in the Rubber is also ...
ABSTRACT A monocausal bacteriological understanding of infectious disease orients tuberculosis co... more ABSTRACT A monocausal bacteriological understanding of infectious disease orients tuberculosis control efforts towards antimicrobial interventions. A bias towards technological solutions can leave multistranded public health and social interventions largely neglected. In the context of globalising biomedical approaches to infectious disease control, this ethnography-inspired review article reflects upon the implementation of rapid diagnostic technology in low- and middle-income countries. Fieldwork observations in Vietnam provided a stimulus for a critical review of the global rollout of tuberculosis diagnostic technology. To address local needs in tuberculosis control, health managers in resource-poor settings are readily cooperating with international donors to deploy novel diagnostic technologies throughout national tuberculosis programme facilities. Increasing investment in new diagnostic technologies is predicated on the supposition that these interventions will ameliorate disease outcomes. However, suboptimal treatment control persists even when accurate diagnostic technologies are available, suggesting that promotion of singular technological solutions can distract from addressing systemic change, without which disease susceptibility, propagation of infection, detection gaps, diagnostic delays, and treatment shortfalls persist.
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Papers by Chris Lyttleton