What will it take for us to take responsibility for our health?

Under the microscope

Dr Leegale Adonis was in part co-supervised by senior economist and professor of policy analysis, Roland Sturm, from the RAND Corporation and Pardee Graduate School in Santa Monica in the US. Economics professor John Luiz, from the University of Cape Town Graduate School of Business, currently supervises her. Dr Adonis’ first publication on her work was published in the May 2013 issue of the South African Medical Journal. Preliminary data was presented at a Public Health Association Conference in South Africa and Dr Adonis also presented at the 3rd Annual Health, Wellness and Society Conference in Sao Paulo in Brazil, in March this year. She has been married for 17 years, is a mom of two and lives in Hyde Park, Johannesburg.

What will it take to get more of us to take responsibility for our health? Dr Leegale Adonis intends to find out.

We know we should but we don’t. It’s a common human failing, particularly when it comes to taking responsibility for our health. We know, for example, that chronic diseases of lifestyle, HIV and some cancers can to a large extent be prevented, yet they’re on the rise. One of the most effective ways of reducing disease burden and its economic consequences is through preventive screening, and it is this area of human behaviour over which Dr Leegale Adonis has focused her microscope.

Her fascination with the human condition goes back to childhood. “My mother was a community nurse in the small town I grew up in. I spent a lot of time in the clinic, helping her out and seeing the interaction she had with people. This intrigued me and spurred my interest in medicine. My mother feared that medicine was a trying career and she tried to dissuade me, but I loved the sense of helping people in need and seeing their sincere gratitude and appreciation."

Now, as a public health specialist, Dr Adonis will try to unravel why preventive screening rates are low. “Knowing how to get more people to screen would have a positive impact on morbidity, mortality and cost outcomes,” she says. Her population of study is the Discovery Health-insured population from 2005 to 2011.

“This work is the first of its kind and will contribute to our understanding of incentivising health seeking behaviour, some of which could be transferable to the larger South African population,” says Dr D Basu, the acting head of the Public Health Unit in the Department of Community Health at Johannesburg’s Charlotte Maxeke Academic Hospital. “This important area of medicine has unfortunately and incorrectly been set aside for other competing priorities. My hope is that I can convince policy makers to incorporate health screening policies and targets as an integral part of the National Health Insurance,” Dr Adonis says.

Her dreams don’t stop there. “I dream of a South Africa with a health profile not inextricably linked to inequality and not marred by poverty, mismanaged health systems and poorly implemented policies.”