Poor mental health of livestock farmers in Africa: a mixed methods case study from Ghana

Background Agriculture represents the mainstay of African economies and livestock products are essential to the human population’s nutritional needs. However, in many developing countries, including Ghana, livestock production fails to meet demand due to population growth and negative effects of cli...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:BMC public health Vol. 20; no. 1; pp. 1 - 12
Main Authors: Nuvey, Francis Sena, Kreppel, Katharina, Nortey, Priscilla Awo, Addo-Lartey, Adolphina, Sarfo, Bismark, Fokou, Gilbert, Ameme, Donne Kofi, Kenu, Ernest, Sackey, Samuel, Addo, Kennedy Kwasi, Afari, Edwin, Chibanda, Dixon, Bonfoh, Bassirou
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: London BioMed Central 01.06.2020
Springer Nature B.V
BMC
Subjects:
Agriculture
Agronomy
Animal diseases
Animal health
Aquaculture
Beef cattle
Biostatistics
Case reports
Cattle
Climate change
Climate effects
Community
Developing countries
Drugs
Economic conditions
Environmental Health
Epidemiology
Farmers
Food
Food chains
Food safety
Food security
Ghana
Global health
Health problems
Health risks
Human populations
LDCs
Livestock
Livestock farming
Livestock loss
Livestock production
Meat
Medicine
Medicine & Public Health
Mental disorders
Mental health
Mental health care
Mixed methods research
open climate campaign
Pasture
Performance evaluation
Population
Population growth
Public Health
Qualitative analysis
Questionnaires
Research Article
Studies
Theft
Vaccine
Vegetation
Veterinary
Veterinary medicine
Well being
Ghana
Africa
Food safety
Ghana
Livestock loss
Veterinary
Food security
Mental health
ISSN:1471-2458, 1471-2458
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:Background Agriculture represents the mainstay of African economies and livestock products are essential to the human population’s nutritional needs. However, in many developing countries, including Ghana, livestock production fails to meet demand due to population growth and negative effects of climate change. One of the challenges to production is livestock loss affecting farmers. However, despite stressful events experienced, livestock farmers’ mental health is poorly documented. This study aims to identify the root causes of livestock losses and their influence on pastoralists’ mental health. Methods We conducted a mixed methods study in two districts in the Northern and Southern Belts of Ghana. Using the Depression Anxiety and Stress Scale–21 and guided interviews, we collected quantitative and qualitative data from 287 livestock farmers and 24 key-informants respectively. Mental health scores were categorized using standard guidelines. We evaluated the factors that explained variations in mental wellbeing using general linear models ( α  = 0.05). Results About 85% (240/287) of the livestock farmers lost cattle within 1 year. Of these, 91% lost cattle to animal diseases, 50% to theft and 27% to pasture shortages. Qualitative findings reveal that due to poor access to veterinary services, farmers treat livestock diseases themselves with drugs from unregulated sources and often sell diseased cows for meat to recover losses. Findings showed that 60% of livestock farmers had poor mental health. Of those, 72% were depressed, 66% anxious and 59% stressed. Mental wellbeing was negatively associated with the number of adverse events experienced, proportion of livestock lost to most of the major loss factors, emotional attachment to livestock and self-reported physical illnesses in farmers, but positively associated with increasing herd size [F (8,278) = 14.18, p  < 0.001, R 2  = 0.29]. Conclusions Livestock diseases are the leading cause of losses to livestock farmers, whose mental wellbeing is negatively affected by these losses. Although an adaptive strategy by farmers to compensate for poor veterinary services, the arbitrary use of veterinary drugs and sale of diseased cattle pose health risks to the public. Further research to evaluate the performance of veterinary services in Ghana, mental health problems and risk to human health due to potential high-risk meat entering the food chain, is needed.
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ISSN:1471-2458
1471-2458
DOI:10.1186/s12889-020-08949-2