Abstract:

“Street medicine vendors” popularity is commonly attributed to affordability and convenience, or sometimes such explanations risk oversimplifying the complex realities that shape care-seeking behaviour. This study draws on 17 group discussions and 27 interviews conducted in Nanoro, Burkina Faso, to explore how street medicine vendors are embedded in everyday strategies to navigate precarity. Findings show that street medicine vendors are critical actors in sustaining livelihoods. Their medicines enable people to keep working through illness, reduce out-of-pocket health expenses, and maintain animal health, which is vital to rural economies. Mothers face compounded pressures as caregivers and income earners in their households, often relying on informal care in difficult economic circumstances, with limited fathers’ support. The widespread use of street medicines reflects not just economic benefits but adaptive responses to structural barriers, gendered roles, and the imperative to preserve wellbeing and productivity.