1. Collecting Ethnographic Data in Tanzania and Ghana

2. Risk and Trust in Medicinal Transactions in Sub-Saharan Africa
National Institute for Medical Research (N.I.M.R.), Tanzania Dept. of Anthropology & School of Medicine, Pharmacy and Health, Durham University Dept. of Sociology, University of Oxford Dept. of Geography & Medical School, University of Cape Coast, Ghana

3. Global Pharmaceuticals: Emerging Threats and the problem of trust
Pharmaceuticals are a key plank of 21st century global health efforts but emerging threats include …
Antimicrobial resistance
Pricing, patents and access to ‘essential medicines’
Substandard, spurious, falsely labelled, falsified and counterfeit (SSFFC) medical products

4. Central problem: the efficacy of a medicine is impossible to discern directly from its appearance.
Because we can’t see directly what the active ingredient is and what it does, there is a risk of taking…
A medicine with no active ingredient
A medicine with the wrong amount of active ingredient
The wrong medicine (not indicated for the condition)
To take a medicine therefore involves an act of trust.

5. Our focus: the role of trust in medicinal transactions in supply chains
Formal supply chains…
Tremblay (2013), Current Drug Safety, 8(1)

6. … and informal supply chains

7. The ethnographic method

9. The process so far Discussion and training Data collection
Writing up interview and field notes
Review and revisit field sites and interviewees as many times as is necessary
Focus is on depth and detail
Training in the classroom and in the field

10. What is working Capacity building in Ghana and Tanzania
Making use of the internet and social media to manage the data collection
Building strong professional relationships with colleagues
Getting the kind of data that we want

11. What isn’t working so well
Getting the data we want
Keeping to the schedule
- fieldnotes
- review process

12. Conclusion Setting and managing expectations
More than an exchange of money for data but not an equal intellectual partnership
What happens now?
Foster local partnerships between academics and regulatory bodies
Dissemination of findings (stake holder meetings; information campaigns)
Publications
Joint ownership of data
New grant applications