“The global financial crisis and access to health care in Africa” in Africa Today
Just when health care financing in Africa is expected to pick up due to perceptible improvements in many economies, including those of Ethiopia, Rwanda, and Angola, the global financial crisis gathers momentum for contagion. This paper examines how the financial crisis is undermining access to health care in Africa, and offers some suggestions to help improve the situation. The paper sees access as a multifaceted concept, imbued with various social, economic, and geographic characteristics. The study found that the revenue constrictions wrought by the ongoing financial crises (e.g., through reductions in donor funding, tourist bookings, and remittance to Africa) have affected the supply of health care services, put pressure on personal finances, and compelled many households to reduce their demand for formal health care services. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]
Joseph Mensah is a Professor in the Department of Geography at York University. Mensah works in cultural studies, transnationalism, formations of ethno-racial identity, African development, socio-spatial dialectics, race and return migration.
Other publications from this author include:
- “The Black, continental African presence and the nation-immigration dialectic in Canada” in Social Identities: Journal for the Study of Race, Nation and Culture (2015)
- “Seeing/being double: how African immigrants in Canada balance their ethno-racial and national identities” in African and Black Diaspora: An International Journal (2015)
- “Black continental African identities in Canada: Exploring the intersections of identity formation and immigrant transnationalism” in Journal of Canadian Studies (2014)
- “Ghana’s National Health Insurance: insights from members, administrators, and health care providers” in Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved (2013)
- “Cultural dimensions of African immigrant housing in Toronto: a qualitative insight” in Housing Studies (2013)
- Ghanaian and Somali immigrants in Toronto’s rental market: a comparative cultural perspective of housing issues and coping strategies” in Canadian Ethnic Studies (2013)
- “Access to postsecondary education: can schools compensate for socioeconomic disadvantage?” in Higher Education (2012)
- “Gender, power, and religious transnationalism among the African diaspora in Canada” in African Geographical Review (2012)
- Black Canadians: History, Experience, Social Conditions (2010)
- Neoliberalism and Globalization in Africa: Contestations on the Embattled Continent (2008)