Training Indigenous Women to Conduct Health Promotion in the Developing World: Empowering Women or Colluding with Multiple Oppressions?

Abstract

Countries that have women in subservient positions have higher disease and mortality rates for women and children. Listening to Dragonflies Project is testing a sustainable model of health behavior change, training indigenous women in rural Vietnam based on the assumption that sustainability is dependent on women's empowerment. Psychological health behavior interventions are not politically neutral. This article examines the simultaneous oppressions that women in the developing countries face, while questioning the intended and unintended consequences that emerge from participating in a health behavior change program that intrinsically fosters self-efficacy and women's empowerment in the face of simultaneous interlocking oppressions.

KEYWORDS:

• applied research in health behavior change
• health advocates
• health behavior change in developing world
• women's empowerment
• women in developing world

Acknowledgments

This research was supported by the Freda B. Runyan Foundation and the efforts of Lori Abucayan, Kaile Brake, Caroline Chan, Trinh Do Demirer, Eve DeVito, Sonya Gotts, Ka Lee, Tran Nguyen, Ryan Parrot, Kristina Reynolds, Alana Russaw, Christy Shaw, LiaToglieri, and Christian Washburn.