Prescribing HIV Prevention ─ Bringing Culture into Global Health Communication

Critical health communication scholars point out that the acceptance of HIV risk prevention methods are bound inside inequitable structures of power and knowledge. Nicola Bulled’s in-depth ethnographic account of how these messages are selected, transmitted and reacted to by young adults in the AIDS-torn population of Lesotho in southern Africa provides a crucial example of the importance of a culture-centered approach to health communication. She shows the clash between traditional western perceptions of how increased knowledge will increase compliance with western ideas of prevention, and mixed messages offered by local religious, educational, and media institutions. Bulled also demonstrates how structural and geographical forces prevent the delivery and acceptance of health messages, and how local communities shape their own knowledge of health, disease and illness. This volume will be of interest to medical anthropologists and sociologists, to those in health communication, and to researchers working on issues related to HIV.

Nicola Bulled has a Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of Connecticut and an MPH from the Boston University School of Public Health. She has a growing track record in health-related publications, and health research among several populations in the U.S., Lesotho, and South Africa. She worked in public health with state and city HIV prevention programs, including the Boston Needle Exchange, prior to pursuing her doctorate degree. Originally from South Africa, she has a keen interest in the region. She became acutely aware of the effects of global health communication when she worked in Lesotho in 2004 establishing an US-funded HIV-testing clinic on a college campus. Her research was funded by the Fulbright Foundation.