Culture, Health and Development in South Asia

Recently, mass arsenic poisoning of groundwater has emerged as a disastrous public health concern in Bangladesh. Apart from hundreds of deaths that have already been reported, 85 million people are estimated to be at high risk of developing deadly arsenicosis symptoms. This book examines how the actual patients perceive, explain, manage, and respond to this catastrophic public health outbreak. It goes on to examine how such lay perceptions shape health-seeking behavior of subjects in a medically plural context. To make the issue more holistic, this book further analyses mitigation strategies and community participation in these projects.