Biography and expertise
Biography
Dr. Peter Bai James is a lecturer and Course Coordinator at the National Centre for Naturopathic Medicine, Southern Cross University. He previously served as an associate lecturer at the University of Sierra Leone and as a drug regulatory officer at the Ministry of Health and Sanitation, Sierra Leone.
Peter is a member of SCU's Research Clusters:
- Harvest to Health
Peter's work contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals
Research
Peter has acquired methodological knowledge and skills in quantitative, qualitative, and mixed method research, systematic reviews, public health, and health service research. His research interests include health and health services research among survivors of emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases, traditional and complementary medicine policy and integration to healthcare systems, Pharmaceutical, education, and practice Behavioral Health in low-income countries.
Community engagement
He has editorial commitments with reputable public health, complementary medicine, and biomedical journals, and serves as peer reviewer. He currently serves as WHO expert review committee member on the appropriate integration of T&CM into national health systems.
He is an advisory Committee member of the West African Health Organization (WAHO) Traditional Medicine Program, WHO expert on African Traditional medicine. Peter currently serves as a co-coordinator of the Northern Rivers Multicultural forum, member of the Public Health Association of Australia, the International Society for Traditional, Complementary, and Integrative Medicine Research, the African Mental health learning circle, and the Australian Research Network for African Academics.
Supervision
Peter supervises PhD and undergraduate pharmacy students, with research interests in traditional and complementary medicine, migrant health, health systems for emerging diseases, and pharmacy practice.
Links
Honours
Organisational affiliations
Highlights - Output
Journal article
Published 29/04/2023
BMC complementary medicine and therapies, 23, 137
Background
Insights into the use of traditional medicine practitioners (TMP)-for common childhood diseases such as diarrhea and respiratory infections are important to understand the role of Traditional Medicine (TM) in reducing the increasing childhood morbidity and mortality in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). However, a comprehensive picture of TMP utilisation and its associated factors for childhood illness in SSA is lacking. This study aimed to estimate the prevalence of the use of traditional medicine practitioner services to treat childhood illnesses among women with children under five years old and to identify individual and community-level factors associated with TMP use in SSA.
Methods
The analysis used Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) dataset collected between 2010 and 2021 among 353,463 under-fives children from 32 SSA countries. Our outcome variable was the use of TMP for childhood illness, defined as having diarrhoea or fever/cough or both. Using STATA v14, we employed the random effect meta-analysis to estimate the pooled prevalence of TMP use for childhood illness and a two-level multivariable multilevel modelling to determine the individual and community-level factors associated with consultation of a TMP.
Results
Approximately [2.80% (95%CI: 1.88–3.90)] women who sought healthcare for childhood illnesses utilised the service of a TMP with the highest occurring in Cote d’Ivoire [16.3% (95%CI: 13.87–19.06)] and Guinea (13.80% (95%CI: 10.74–17.57)] but the lowest in Sierra Leone [0.10%(95%CI:0.01–1.61)]. Specifically, approximately [1.95% (95%CI: 1.33–2.68)] and [1.09% (95%CI:0.67–1.60)] of women sought the service of a TMP for childhood diarrhea and fever/cough, respectively. Women with no formal education [AOR = 1.62;95%CI:1.23–2.12], no media access [AOR = 1.19;95%CI:1.02–1.39), who lived in a male-headed household [AOR = 1.64;95%CI:1.27–2.11], without health insurance [AOR = 2.37;95%CI: 1.53–3.66], who considered it a problem getting permission to visit a health facility [AOR = 1.23;95%CI:1.03–1.47] and who perceived the size of their children at birth to be above average[AOR = 1.20;95%CI:1.03–1.41] had higher odds of using TMP for childhood illnesses.
Conclusions
Although the prevalence of TMP for childhood illnesses appeared low, our findings highlight that TMPs continue to play a critical role in managing childhood illnesses in SSA. It is essential that policymakers and service providers should incorporate the potential role of TMPs in the design, review and implementation of child health policies in SSA. Also, the interventions for curtailing childhood illnesses should be focused on the characteristics of women who use TMPs for childhood diseases identified in our study.