Raise awareness on racial and ethnic disparities within the Ugandan health sector

It saddens us to say that most western research studies mainly relate autoimmune diseases like SLE/Lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, Juvenile rheumatoid arthritis and celiac disease, with white people. This therefore, makes it difficult to diagnose black people, especially black Africans like Ugandans, who are falsely diagnosed with mental illnesses given the fact that Ugandan doctors don’t believe that autoimmune diseases exist amongst black people, especially those in Uganda. This false believe that is promoted by racially and ethnically biased research from western and European countries is further strengthened by individuals, especially psychiatrists, who are interested in exploiting unsuspecting patients by misdiagnosing them with fraudulent mental illnesses like Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD).

Worth noting is that this kind of global racial and ethnic inequality or disparity is as a result of strong systemic racial and ethnic bias that exists within western countries which develop research and medical studies that are based on racial and ethnic discrimination, particularly at the disadvantage of black people. For example, SLE/Lupus is an autoimmune disease that mostly affects black Americans, yet if one searches for the signs and symptoms of this disease, they immediately notice that only white people’s signs and symptoms of the diseases exist or where researched on and declared as the guide or standard of diagnosing potential patients around the world. Therefore, this has raised the criteria required for black Americans to be diagnosed and further doubled the criteria required by black Africans, who are further exploited by psychiatrists given the very high criteria required.

Thence, the need to raise awareness amongst donors, Ugandans and health officials on racial and ethnic disparities/inequalities existing within the health system, particularly the rheumatology and  endocrinology departments, among others.

Worth noting is that autoimmune diseases are diseases which cause the bodies immunity to accidentally attack healthy cells within the patient’s body like the liver, heart, kidneys, veins and bones, among others.

For more information on our awareness raising project, please follow the link below on autoimmune diseases, especially SLE/Lupus and climate change,

This project has impacted at least 3,000 people within the Bosch Alumni net work and at least 25 people outside the Bosch Alumni Network.