README.md

metadata

license: cc-by-4.0
task_categories:
  - tabular-classification
language:
  - en
tags:
  - substandard-falsified-medicines
  - herbal-medicine
  - traditional-medicine
  - contamination
  - adulteration
  - synthetic
  - sub-saharan-africa
pretty_name: Herbal & Traditional Medicine Safety (SSA)
size_categories:
  - 10K<n<100K
configs:
  - config_name: traditional_healer_practice
    data_files: data/herbal_traditional_healer.csv
    default: true
  - config_name: herbal_retail_market
    data_files: data/herbal_retail_market.csv
  - config_name: hospital_herb_drug_interaction
    data_files: data/herbal_hospital_interaction.csv
data_type: synthetic

⚠️ Synthetic dataset — Parameterized from published SSA literature, not real observations. Not suitable for empirical analysis or policy inference.

Herbal & Traditional Medicine Safety in Sub-Saharan Africa

Abstract

Synthetic dataset modelling herbal/traditional medicine safety including contamination, adulteration, herb-drug interactions, and health outcomes across three settings in SSA. ~80% of Africans use traditional medicine; heavy metal contamination, microbial hazards, and adulteration with synthetic drugs are major safety concerns.

Parameterization Evidence

Parameter	Value	Source	Year
Heavy metal contamination (Pb, Cd, Hg, As) in herbals	Contamination	Frontiers Pharmacol	2020
Adulteration with synthetic drugs, pesticides, microbes	Adulteration	IntechOpen	2018
Microbial and heavy metal contamination review	Safety	BMC Complement Med	2023
Agranulocytosis, meningitis, multi-organ failure	Harm	PubMed 22843016	2012

Validation

Usage

from datasets import load_dataset
ds = load_dataset("electricsheepafrica/herbal-traditional-medicine-safety", "traditional_healer_practice")

References

1. Frontiers Pharmacology. Heavy metal contamination in herbal medicines. 2020.
2. IntechOpen. Toxicity and safety of herbal medicines in Africa. 2018.
3. BMC Complement Med. Microbial and heavy metal contamination review. 2023.
4. PubMed 22843016. Contamination and adulteration of HMPs. 2012.

Citation

@dataset{electricsheepafrica_herbal_traditional_medicine_safety_2025,
  title={Herbal and Traditional Medicine Safety in Sub-Saharan Africa},
  author={Electric Sheep Africa},
  year={2025},
  publisher={HuggingFace},
  url={https://huggingface.co/datasets/electricsheepafrica/herbal-traditional-medicine-safety}
}

License

CC-BY-4.0