Stress levels and alcohol use amongst beginning students at a peri-urban South African university: A brief report

Research on willingness to participate in HIV vaccine trials is important in preparations for HIV vaccine research, but there are few data from sub-Saharan Africa. We interviewed 198 individuals in a peri-urban South African community immediately after enrolment into an HIV vaccine preparedness study on their willingness to participate in hypothetical vaccine trials. Overall 23% of participants ( n = 46) said that they would be willing to participate in an HIV vaccine trial. Willingness was associated with increasing age, male gender, and increasing knowledge about vaccines generally and HIV vaccines specifically. In multivariate analysis, a 1-unit increase in HIV vaccine knowledge score was associated with a 10-fold increase in willingness to participate (adjusted odds ratio, 10.72, 95% confidence intervals: 4.40–26.12). These results suggest that while willingness to participate in HIV vaccine trials is relatively low in this setting, educational campaigns may have a substantial impact on individuals' willingness to participate in research.

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Pulmonary cysticercosis in an urban South African child

Pediatric Pulmonology ◽

10.1002/ppul.25682 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Zandiswa Nowalaza ◽

Marco Zampoli ◽

Komala Pillay ◽

Shivani Singh ◽

Heather J. Zar

Keyword(s):

South African ◽

African Child ◽

Urban South ◽

South African Child

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Knowledge management according to organisational size: A South African perspective

SA Journal of Information Management ◽

10.4102/sajim.v15i1.526 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 15 (1) ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Cornelius Kruger ◽

Roy D. Johnson

Keyword(s):

South Africa ◽

Knowledge Management ◽

South African ◽

Middle Management ◽

Senior Management ◽

Urban South ◽

Embedded Knowledge ◽

Personal Approach ◽

African Perspective ◽

Insight Into

Background:To date, few studies have focused on how embedded Knowledge Management (KM) is found in the roots of an organisation. Specifically, not much is known whether employees and managers hold similar perceptions regarding KM or if organisational size plays a role in the establishment of KM maturity.Objective: The objective of this article was to determine what role organisational size plays in the establishment of KM maturity and how different managerial levels viewed their organisations KM maturity.Method: The authors gained insight into KM maturity in different industry groupings over a five-year period from a large urban South African University engaged in numerous collaboration programmes with industry. In total, 434 employees were interviewed over three grouping levels (operational, middle and senior management).Results: The findings support arguments that irrespective of organisational size, knowledge orientated issues are applicable to all organisations. However, with significant differences in scores recorded over all maturity sections in South Africa, the findings indicated that different sized organisations address knowledge-orientated issues differently.Conclusion: Findings challenge the argument that the manner in which knowledge-orientated issues are addressed differ only slightly depending on organisational size. Smaller-sized organisations prefer a more personal approach, whilst larger-sized organisations prefer knowledge transfer via technology. Irrespective of organisational size, commitment holds the key to KM success. Commitment shown by middle management regarding KM is a differentiator.

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The Relationship Between Patterns of Alcohol Use and Knowledge of Alcohol-Attributable Health Conditions: A Survey Among Students at a South African University

The Open Public Health Journal ◽

10.2174/1874944501912010455 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 12 (1) ◽

pp. 455-464

Author(s):

Andrew Mandeya ◽

Daniel Ter Goon

Keyword(s):

Alcohol Use ◽

South African ◽

Health Knowledge ◽

Cross Sectional Study ◽

Health Conditions ◽

Eastern Cape ◽

Cross Sectional ◽

Risky Alcohol ◽

Alcohol Users ◽

The Relationship

Background: While many studies exist on the prevalence of alcohol use among South African university students, such information is scant for universities in the Eastern Cape Province. This study examines the prevalence of alcohol use among students at one university in the Eastern Cape, the relationship between such use and the knowledge of alcohol-attributable health conditions and biographical characteristics. Methods: The cross-sectional study involved 213 students enrolled in a statistics service course. A self-administered questionnaire was used to collect information on various biographical characteristics, alcohol use and health knowledge. The English version of the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT) questionnaire was used to measure alcohol use. The Mann-Whitney and Kruskal-Wallis tests were used to compare health knowledge across levels of alcohol use and biographical variables. Multiple logistic regression was applied to determine patterns of association between alcohol use and health knowledge, and biographical variables. Results: The prevalence rates of alcohol use and risky alcohol use were 58.2% and 42.7%, respectively. Health knowledge was generally low and significantly higher among alcohol users (Z=-2.7; p=0.0074) and those whose fathers had a post-matric education X2=6.4; p=0.0410) and/or employment (Z=-2.7; p=0.0064). Males, returning students and those with employed fathers were found to have a higher chance of alcohol use. Conclusion: Alcohol use among students was high and knowledge of alcohol-attributable diseases was low. These results suggest a need for health promotion interventions for the general student population and/or risk reduction interventions for risky alcohol users.

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NOTES ON SPATIAL-STRUCTURAL CHANGE IN URBAN SOUTH AFRICA -THE 1990s

Journal of Urban and Regional Analysis ◽

10.37043/jura.2019.1.1.3 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 1 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Hermanus S. GEYER

Keyword(s):

South Africa ◽

South African ◽

Informal Sector ◽

Urban Poor ◽

Structural Evolution ◽

Business Sector ◽

Urban South ◽

World Class ◽

Urban Business ◽

South African Cities

Informal businesses used to be something that was only tolerated in the former black townships during the years of apartheid. Since then the informal business sector has become an integral part of the central business setup of cities in South Africa. It not only serves to widen the security net of the urban poor in cities, it also represents the outcome of the democratization process in the country over the past fifteen years. Yet, there has been a tendency amongst local authorities to take steps to reduce the footprint of this sector in the urban environment in recent years. This trend ties in with the new approach of government to transform South African cities to become ’world class’ centres - a step that is aimed at making the cities more visually acceptable to visitors from abroad. In this paper an attempt is made to demonstrate the importance of the informal sector within the urban business makeup and to show what role it played in the spatial-structural evolution of the urban economies during the 1990s. The paper analyzes the structure of the urban business sector as a whole and structurally links the formal and informal sectors, demonstrating the importance of both sectors in the economic makeup of the cities. It analyses the structure of the informal sector and shows how different layers of the sector potentially relates to the formal urban sector.

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