This dissertation examines survivor health through media discourse, community trauma and health social movements in the aftermath of the 2014-16 West Africa Ebola epidemic. As the largest Ebola epidemic ever recorded, the 2014-16 Ebola epidemic in West Africa left approximately 15,000 Ebola survivors. While disciplines including public health and disaster science attended to understandings of Ebola survivorship during the height of the Ebola response, limited studies attend to the social-structural aspects of survivor health long after public health and humanitarian interventions ceased. After the epidemic, various forms of community trauma emerged for Ebola survivors in Sierra Leone produced by a multitude of community discordances, including stigmatization, inequities in resource allocation, the need to advocate for health rights and ultimately, the biomedicalization of Ebola survivors. I center survivor health as a social problem that requires social analyses and solutions.

 

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