Do socioeconomic variables explain medicinal plant knowledge and the diseases they treat? A case study in the Boa Vista community, Alagoas, Northeastern Brazil

Aldean Lima De Souza,André Luiz Borba Nascimento,Taline Cristina Da Silva

doi:10.1590/2175-7860202172050

Abstract

Abstract Local medicinal plants knowledge varies in relation to factors as age, gender, education, and income. Understanding this variation enables the identification of weaknesses in local medical systems, since access to knowledge is well distributed in different social classes. Socioeconomic variables can influence the quantity of known medicinal plants, and therefore, there may be a qualitative variation in the plant and disease repertoire of different social groups. Thus, we aimed to identify if socioeconomic variables influence the set of known medicinal plants and diseases by people in the Boa Vista community, São José of Tapera, Alagoas. A total of 33 semi-structured interviews were conducted, using the free-listing technique for data collection. There were no significant differences between the knowledge of men and women from a quantitative point of view. We observed that older interviewees knew more medicinal plants than younger, and there was a significant difference between the medicinal plants known to older and younger people. In terms of cited diseases, there was no difference between gender or age. Therefore, making inferences about qualitative-quantitative aspects of medicinal plant and disease knowledge requires understanding the social structure of the studied community, since people with similar social roles tend to have homogeneous knowledge.

Highlights

Ethnobotanical studies have been developed to identify which socioeconomic variables influence knowledge and use of medicinal plants by local populations, and among the most investigated variables are age, gender, income, and education level of the interviewees (Almeida et al 2011; Bapstel et al 2014; Paniagua-Zambrana et al 2014; Andriamparany et al 2014)
Medicinal plant knowledge and socioeconomic variables have been observed to increase with age, where generally older people cite a greater number of plants than younger people (Monteiro et al 2006; Voeks 2007; Oliveira et al 2012)
The present study aimed to evaluate whether local knowledge on medicinal plants is influenced quantitatively by socioeconomic variables such as age, gender, income, and education, as well as qualitatively for plants and diseases cited among genders and people of different age groups in the rural community of Boa Vista, São José da Tapera, AL, northeastern Brazil

Summary

Introduction

Ethnobotanical studies have been developed to identify which socioeconomic variables influence knowledge and use of medicinal plants by local populations, and among the most investigated variables are age, gender, income, and education level of the interviewees (Almeida et al 2011; Bapstel et al 2014; Paniagua-Zambrana et al 2014; Andriamparany et al 2014). Results from these studies identify which social groups concentrate more information on medicinal plant knowledge and can direct studies that aim at bioprospecting (Albuquerque et al 2014). Older generations may have been more likely to know plants that are no longer available for younger generations (Hanazaki et al 2013)

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Results