Description
- Abstract:
- Background & Aims: The ghettoization of Jews during the Holocaust created a public health crisis of which there has been little study, creating a gap in our understanding of this issue. This novel qualitative study analyzes Holocaust survivors’ oral histories in order to understand how former Warsaw Ghetto residents perceived healthcare accessibility and utility within the ghetto during World War II. Here, we explore these narratives with focus on residents' health care experiences, to discern features of dissemination and uptake of health information, and then explore the implications of these patterns on contemporary applications. Methods: Oral histories derive from the USC Shoah Foundation’s Visual History Archive (VHA), a public database of voluntary testimonies shared by genocide survivors. This sample includes selected oral histories collected by VHA interviewers from 22 participants who discussed ghetto health care and resided in the Warsaw Ghetto during World War II. Deidentified responses were coded and thematically analyzed in NVivo according to an inductively-contrived codebook. Results: Experiences Participants reported a wide range of medical experiences while residing in the Warsaw Ghetto. Topic of discussion include medical emergencies (n=18; including surgery, disease, starvation, and medical resource scarcity); interaction with care providers (n=12; including reporting care from a trained medical provider, primarily during at-home visits and care from untrained medical providers; public health measure enforcement (n=6; enforcement by authorities outside of the ghetto, enforcement by ghetto organizations and reporting enforcement by family members); and burials following deaths attributed to medical emergencies (n=6; witnessing both traditional and non-traditional burial methods). Behaviors Participants engaged in health behaviors based on their exposure to public health information and medical rumors while residing in the Warsaw Ghetto. Participants used health information to decide which measures to use for typhus prevention (n=14). Some specifically reported avoiding medical care because of health-related rumors (n=2). Interpretations Participants expressed diverse interpretations of the health care they experienced while residing in the Warsaw Ghetto. Topics of discussion include the typhus epidemic (n=9; including negative perceptions and perceptions of epidemic utility); typhus vaccines (n=3; including perceived exclusivity, expense, and effectiveness); typhus transmission attributable to living conditions (n=11; malnutrition, cold exposure, overcrowding, and poor sanitation); survival reasons (n=3; caretaking measures and prayer); and perceived long-term effects of ghetto health care experiences (n=2; pain tolerance and nightmares). Conclusions: The findings of this study supports the theory of medical treatment as resistance that has been proposed by other researchers. Given resource scarcity, participants are inclined to find alternative forms of health care. Participants interpreted medical information independently in the absence of unified health systems. This work has implications for contemporary research regarding vulnerable populations. Researchers should inquire about systems of grassroots medical care and the implications of word-of-mouth health information sharing, as vulnerable populations may be more likely to engage in health care outside of care systems and utilize available, but not always reliable, information to make health care decisions.
- Notes:
- Thesis (M. P. H.)--Brown University, 2023
Citation
Wilson, Bailee Michelle,
"“This Terrible Sickness”: Perceptions of Health in the Warsaw Ghetto and Implications for Contemporary Praxis in Low-Resource, Highly-Stigmatized Communities"
(2023).
Public Health Theses and Dissertations.
Brown Digital Repository. Brown University Library.
https://repository.library.brown.edu/studio/item/bdr:424twd8b/
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Public Health Theses and Dissertations
Theses and Dissertations for the Public Health department....