Collaborative research, participatory solutions: research on asbestos in Kuruman, South Africa

Our plain-English summary of Collaborative research, participatory solutions: research on asbestos in Kuruman, South Africa, by N. Jacobs, S. Kisting, L. Braun (International Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health, 2004).

The study

• Authors: N. Jacobs, S. Kisting, L. Braun
• Journal: International Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health
• Published: 2004;10(2):226-32
• Type of article: Review
• Read it: PubMed · Publisher

Abstract

The 1998 South African National Asbestos Summit proposed a post-apartheid asbestos policy for the country. In the areas of environmental rehabilitation, health care, and compensation, it envisioned connecting asbestos mitigation to participatory development. In 2001, the Asbestos Collaborative, an international and interdisciplinary team, conducted follow-up research on the recommendations of the 1998 Summit, researching environmental, health, and compensation issues through consultation of documents and interviews with officials in urban areas and with people in Kuruman, a former crocidolite-mining site with high rates of asbestos-related disease. In Kuruman, local opinion supported the recommendations of the Asbestos Summit, insisting that policies to mitigate the problem of asbestos must also address poverty. In the wake of the 2001 research, a new organization, the Asbestos Interest Group (AIG), has been founded to facilitate grassroots participation in asbestos issues. One success of the AIG has been the settlement of a lawsuit by former workers against the former mining company in Kuruman.

In plain English

This article described 2001 qualitative research by an international university team, the Asbestos Collaborative. The team followed up the 1998 South African National Asbestos Summit's recommendations through documents and interviews with academics, officials and activists. It also interviewed nonwhite residents of five villages near former mining sites around Kuruman, where crocidolite was mined until 1997. The authors reported that local opinion endorsed many Summit recommendations, though many policies were not yet implemented. They described unrehabilitated sites, including a milling dump above a Ncweng primary school, and a high level of confusion about compensation. People made ill by the contaminated environment were not entitled to occupational health services. Later, the government covered the exposed crocidolite above the Ncweng school. By January 2003, 60 villages had joined a new Asbestos Interest Group. A lawsuit against Gencor by 37 named individuals and 6,000 additional claimants settled in March 2003 for 490 million rand. The authors concluded that the Summit, the 2001 research and the Asbestos Interest Group marked a transition from a vision of participation to a grassroots organization.

We wrote this plain-English summary from the full article with the help of AI, and a second AI model checked each sentence against the article. It is not the authors' wording; the abstract and the article are their own account.

What the study did and found

• Design: Qualitative research: documentary research and interviews, reported as a descriptive account of the research and its aftermath
• Who was studied: Nonwhite inhabitants of five villages near former mining sites, and white ex-miners and their family members in the town of Kuruman, South Africa, in 2001; academics, officials and activists in Cape Town, Johannesburg and Kimberley. The number of people interviewed is not given.
• Exposure: Crocidolite mining around Kuruman, which ended in 1997, and environmental contamination from mining sites
• Main results:
  • Popular opinion in Kuruman endorsed many of the Summit recommendations, but many new policies had yet to be implemented.
  • The Department of Minerals and Energy indicated that the previous government had required Gefco, the main mining company in Kuruman, to pay only 5% of rehabilitation costs.
  • The researchers highlighted a milling dump on the hillside above the primary school in the village of Ncweng.
  • People who contracted asbestos-related diseases through the contaminated environment were not entitled to occupational health services.
  • The researchers found a high level of confusion about the compensation system.
  • In December 2001, after the report to Parliament, the government covered the exposed crocidolite at the site above the Ncweng school.
  • The Asbestos Interest Group, formed in March 2002, had been joined by 60 villages in the Kuruman/Vryburg region by January 2003.
  • A lawsuit in South African courts against Gencor, with 37 named individuals with asbestos-related diseases and 6,000 additional claimants registered through the Asbestos Interest Group, settled in March 2003 for 490 million rand.
• The authors' conclusion: The authors concluded that the Asbestos Summit, the 2001 research and the Asbestos Interest Group represent a transition from a vision of participation to a grassroots organization. They also said that rehabilitation and health care had not yet become fundamentally participatory, and that how litigation would support participatory community structures was yet to be seen.
• Limitations the authors state:
  • There has been no comprehensive epidemiologic survey of how common asbestos-related disease is in Kuruman.
  • The report on the Asbestos Interest Group's activities could only be very preliminary.

Topics

The National Library of Medicine indexes this study under subjects our site covers: Asbestosis.

Medical terms in this study, explained in our Lexicon: Crocidolite.

Related studies

• Asbestos-related disease in South Africa: the social production of an invisible epidemic — L. Braun, S. Kisting (2006)
• The dimensions of airborne asbestos fibres--I. Crocidolite from Kuruman area, Cape Province, South Africa — C.Y. Hwang, G.W. Gibbs (1981)
• The social context of occupational disease: asbestos and South Africa — J. Myers (1981)
• The mortality of amphibole miners in South Africa, 1946-80 — G.K. Sluis-Cremer, F.D. Liddell, et al. (1992)
• Excess mortality from stomach cancer, lung cancer, and asbestosis and/or mesothelioma in crocidolite mining districts in South Africa — J.L. Botha, L.M. Irwig, et al. (1986)
• Risk of asbestosis in crocidolite and amosite mines in South Africa — L.M. Irwig, R.S. du Toit, et al. (1979)

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