Health and development: knowledge systems and local practice in rural Thailand

Abstract

The specific framing of health within a development context has implications for constructions of wellness and illness and how people react in times of ill health. In Thailand, recent national HIV/AIDS education-prevention campaigns commonly use top-down relay of public health information. This pattern replicates numerous development projects that aim to bring useful and beneficial knowledge to rural villagers. How villagers integrate this information depends, in part, on previous experiences with development programs in general and public health programs in particular. This paper considers the political economy of medical knowledge and multiple local health strategies in rural Northeast Thailand as a background to the contingent response to public health directives.