Albinism, spiritual and cultural practices, and implications for health, healthcare, and human rights: a scoping review

Abstract

Persons with albinism – a disability found worldwide – are particularly at risk for human rights violations in Africa. The purpose of this scoping review was to establish the current state of knowledge on albinism, spiritual and cultural practices, and implications for health and health services. Electronic searches of nine databases were conducted. After screening, 40 articles were reviewed. Four themes emerged: health implications of albinism; health-related cultural and spiritual meanings attached to albinism; health-related experiences of persons with albinism; and human rights and albinism. The findings reveal that African ontologies, including witchcraft beliefs and practices, are implicated by their construction of the person with albinism as an ontologically different entity, although few studies explicated this relationship. How broader social structures influence persons with albinism disproportionately, resulting in health and social inequities, is another under-researched area. This scoping review lays the groundwork for intersectoral, interdisciplinary research.

Keywords:

• Albinism
• human rights
• health
• scoping review
• literature review
• spirituality

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to Dr Rick Sawatzky for his invaluable guidance on the methodology for this study, and for the capable assistance of graduate research assistants Kyla Janzen MSN and Flavia Bughiu MSN in the preparation of this manuscript.

Notes

1 CSOs are defined as ‘Non-State, not-for-profit, voluntary entities formed by people in the social sphere that are separate from the State and the market. CSOs represent a wide range of interests and ties. They can include community-based organizations as well as non-governmental organizations (NGOs). In the context of the UN Guiding Principles Reporting Framework, CSOs do not include business or for-profit associations’ (UN 2018).

2 Regarding the numbering system, the study numbers in the Findings section reference the corresponding articles as numbered in Table 1. Full citations for each article are provided in the reference list.