Our goal with the ethnographic piece of our project was to explore the beliefs and attitudes of Americans surrounding the 2014-2016 Ebola outbreak in West Africa. Our semi- structured interviews consisted of open-ended questions surrounding how the students learned of the outbreak and their impressions and knowledge of the disease and transmission.

 

The responses we received were generally very similar. Among the respondents, the validity of information as well as their ability to speak on the subject varied, and it was mostly correlated by the degree of how closely followed politics or health issues. In response to our question on “How they were informed about the disease?”, our focus group first came in contact with knowledge about the disease around the time it became prevalent in the news and through social media. Some relayed that they were informed through their peers in school, often in a joking manner. When asked about their reactions towards the disease, half of the participants remembered that they, as well as those around them, were scared of the virus, mostly by the vocabulary used in the media and the images of aid workers in hazmat suits that covered their entire bodies and faces. The other half stated they were unaffected, with one response stating that their peers experienced the hysteria surrounding swine flu outbreaks and were desensitized for this episode, and the other stating they knew their geographic location in Connecticut was unlikely to be unaffected by the virus.

 

In terms of transmission, the respondents either did not know how the virus spread among populations or they assumed it was spread through water, air, and needles. Half of the respondents added that it mostly occurred in developing countries that do not have proper resources and environment to contain the disease. One stated that it spread due to unsanitary practices and Africa specifically was affected due to the prevalence of mosquito-borne diseases. The nature of the disease, described by another, was that it was extremely contagious and that one's organs "liquidize and turn to mush" because of the disease. 

 

In response to how hysteria generated by the American media reflected the views on West Africa, the region affected by Ebola, respondents stated that the impression of those countries was strife with suffering and poverty. They also remember other attitudes towards westerners that contracted the disease by visiting those countries was along the line of victim blaming and the hope they wouldn't return to their home countries. One respondent mentioned how unhygienic/unsanitary [traditional] practices were an instigator of spread of the disease, which was an example of prejudicial thought, attached blame to victims of the disease for contracting the virus. 

 

Lasting effects of the disease after the outbreak were instability in those nations as well as the continued prevalence of the disease among some of them. Another viewpoint was that there was increased knowledge on how to handle outbreaks of that nature.