Tara Rava Zolnikov

The Implications of Culture in Global Public Health Interventions: a Study of Disco Funerals in Western Kenya Tara Rava Zolnikov

Global public health interventions seek to provide various solutions to longstanding problems. However, cultural and social values may not be considered during intervention design. Without understanding these values, it is difficult to develop sustainable solutions; furthermore, these factors may play a role in the acceptance of implemented projects or have consequences that disintegrate the effectiveness of a project over time. In this book, I focus on an event called a disco funeral, which currently, has not had a successful intervention address it. It is my own personal belief that to truly create change, we must first understand the foundation we are trying to change. That is why I have taken an autoethnographic viewpoint to describe both the situation, the population involved, and the environment of a disco funeral. The final part of the book describes interventions and focuses on specific difficulties that need to be addressed before developing a sustainable, successful project targeting outcomes related to a disco funeral.