Justin Dixon: Assembling the Challenge of Multimorbidity in Zimbabwe: A Participatory Ethnographic Study

Datum
06. März 2024 

Online lec­ture in the frame­work of LSHTM Med­ical Anthro­pol­o­gy Series

Assem­bling the Chal­lenge of Mul­ti­mor­bid­i­ty in Zim­bab­we: A Par­tic­i­pa­to­ry Ethno­graph­ic Study
LSHTM Med­ical Anthro­pol­o­gy Series sem­i­nar with Dr Justin Dixon,
In Lon­don / online via zoom
March 6 at
4.30 gmt 

This sem­i­nar presents find­ings from a par­tic­i­pa­to­ry ethno­graph­ic study that sought to holis­ti­cal­ly char­ac­terise mul­ti­mor­bid­i­ty from mul­ti­ple per­spec­tives across Zimbabwe’s health sec­tor. Mul­ti­mor­bid­i­ty has been framed as among the most press­ing chal­lenges fac­ing health sys­tems glob­al­ly, expos­ing the lim­its of health sys­tems organ­ised around sin­gle dis­eases and organ-sys­tems. Med­ical anthro­pol­o­gists have already con­tributed much to study of mul­ti­mor­bid­i­ty, par­tic­u­lar­ly at the patient and ser­vice deliv­ery lev­el, but the discipline’s meth­ods and trans­la­tion­al strengths are also well-suit­ed to expli­cat­ing the wider epis­temic (infra)structures that shape the abil­i­ty of health sys­tems to piv­ot from a sin­gle- to a mul­ti-mor­bid­i­ty per­spec­tive. This sem­i­nar presents find­ings from a par­tic­i­pa­to­ry ethno­graph­ic study that sought to holis­ti­cal­ly char­ac­terise mul­ti­mor­bid­i­ty from mul­ti­ple per­spec­tives across Zimbabwe’s health sec­tor. It exam­ines fac­tors sus­tain­ing sin­gle-dis­ease think­ing, how dif­fer­ent­ly-sit­u­at­ed actors strug­gle to make mul­ti­mor­bid­i­ty known and ‘doable’ with­in cur­rent struc­tures, and how the study’s col­lab­o­ra­tive engage­ments have pro­vid­ed a dis­ease-neu­tral plat­form for push­ing the con­ver­sa­tion forward. 

Justin Dixon is Assis­tant Pro­fes­sor of Med­ical Anthro­pol­o­gy at LSHTM, based at the Health Research Unit Zim­bab­we (THRU ZIM). Justin’s research lies at the inter­sec­tion of the anthro­pol­o­gy of sci­ence and med­i­cine, with an inter­est in the devel­op­ment of cross-dis­ci­pli­nary and mixed-meth­ods research mod­els. Work­ing most­ly in South Africa and Zim­bab­we over the last 15 years, his research has been par­tic­u­lar­ly con­cerned with the (bio-)politics of dis­ease clas­si­fi­ca­tion in glob­al health and how this shapes the organ­i­sa­tion and expe­ri­ence of med­ical research, train­ing, and care in low-resource con­texts. Justin’s main research focus cur­rent­ly is mul­ti­mor­bid­i­ty, where he is explor­ing the pos­si­bil­i­ties (and lim­i­ta­tions) of this con­cep­tu­al lens for reshap­ing sin­gle-dis­ease par­a­digms and struc­tures in glob­al health. 

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