The Legacy of Colonial Medicine in Central Africa

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Lowes, Sara; Montero, Eduardo
• 署名单位: National Bureau of Economic Research; University of California System; University of California San Diego; Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR); University of Michigan System; University of Michigan
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC REVIEW
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0002-8282
• DOI: 10.1257/aer.20180284
• 发表日期: 2021
• 页码: 1284-1314
• 关键词: hepatitis-c virus; IATROGENIC TRANSMISSION; HEALTH; disease; aid; institutions; inference; military; EPIDEMIC; origins

摘要

Between 1921 and 1956, French colonial governments organized medical campaigns to treat and prevent sleeping sickness. Villagers were forcibly examined and injected with medications with severe, sometimes fatal, side effects. We digitized 30 years of archival records to document the locations of campaign visits at a granular geographic level for five central African countries. We find that greater campaign exposure reduces vaccination rates and trust in medicine, as measured by willingness to consent to a blood test. We examine relevance for present-day health initiatives; World Bank projects in the health sector are less successful in areas with greater exposure.