Indigenous medicine and biomedical health care in fragile settings: insights from Burundi.

This study contributes to the health policy debate on medical systems integration by describing and analysing the interactions between health-care users, indigenous healers, and the biomedical public health system, in the so far rarely documented case of post-conflict Burundi. We adopt a mixed-methods approach combining (1) data from an existing survey on access to health-care, with 6,690 individuals, and (2) original interviews and focus groups conducted in 2014 with 121 respondents, including indigenous healers, biomedical staff, and health-care users. The findings reveal pluralistic patterns of health-care seeking behaviour, which are not primarily based on economic convenience or level of education.