Experiences and Perspectives on Heart Failure in Southwestern Uganda

Across sub-Saharan Africa, heart failure has become one of the most prevalent forms of chronic disease. Because heart failure treatment includes not only medication, but also diet, exercise, and lifestyle modifications, doctors, patients and informal caregivers must work together to organize successful lives for heart failure patients. The proposed study interviews a set of twenty heart failure patients and twenty informal caregivers to investigate how roles are shared and tasks distributed within multi-actor processes of medical decision-making and treatment adherence. Through an interpretive approach to global health research, the project aims to advance understanding of the social mechanisms through which health statistics come into being.