The Theology of Emergency: Welfare Reform, US Foreign Aid and the Faith-Based Initiative

2014 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 53-77 ◽  
Author(s):  
Melinda Cooper
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Foreign Aid ◽  
Service Providers ◽  
The United States ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Health Crisis ◽  
Emergency Relief ◽  
Faith Based ◽  
Social Authority ◽  
Sub Saharan

This article addresses the rise of faith-based emergency relief by examining the US President’s Emergency Plan for HIV/AIDS (PEPFAR), a public health intervention focused on the AIDS epidemic in sub-Saharan Africa. It argues that the theological turn in humanitarian aid serves to amplify ongoing dynamics in the domestic politics of sub-Saharan African states, where social services have assumed the form of chronic emergency relief and religious organizations have come to play an increasingly prominent role in the provision of such services. In the context of an ongoing public health crisis, PEPFAR has institutionalized the social authority of the Pentecostal and charismatic churches, leading to a semantic confluence between the postcolonial politics of emergency and the Pentecostal/Pauline theology of kairos or event. Far from being confined to the space of foreign aid, however, the faith-based turn in humanitarianism is in keeping with ongoing reforms in domestic social policy in the United States. While on the one hand the sustained welfare programmes of the New Deal and Great Society have been dismantled in favour of a system of emergency relief, on the other hand the federal government has intensified its moral, pedagogical and punitive interventions into the lives of the poor. The wilful transfer of welfare services to overtly religious service providers has played a decisive role in this process. The article concludes with a critical appraisal of the links between African and North American Pentecostal-evangelical churches and questions the revolutionary mission ascribed to Pauline political theology in recent political theory.

scholarly journals A SARS-CoV-2 Surveillance System in Sub-Saharan Africa: Modeling Study for Persistence and Transmission to Inform Policy (Preprint)

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lori Ann Post ◽  
Salem T Argaw ◽  
Cameron Jones ◽  
Charles B Moss ◽  
Danielle Resnick ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
South Africa ◽  
Food Insecurity ◽  
Generalized Method Of Moments ◽  
The United States ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Reporting Practices ◽  
Data Limitations ◽  
The World ◽  
Sub Saharan

BACKGROUND Since the novel coronavirus emerged in late 2019, the scientific and public health community around the world have sought to better understand, surveil, treat, and prevent the disease, COVID-19. In sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), many countries responded aggressively and decisively with lockdown measures and border closures. Such actions may have helped prevent large outbreaks throughout much of the region, though there is substantial variation in caseloads and mortality between nations. Additionally, the health system infrastructure remains a concern throughout much of SSA, and the lockdown measures threaten to increase poverty and food insecurity for the subcontinent’s poorest residents. The lack of sufficient testing, asymptomatic infections, and poor reporting practices in many countries limit our understanding of the virus’s impact, creating a need for better and more accurate surveillance metrics that account for underreporting and data contamination. OBJECTIVE The goal of this study is to improve infectious disease surveillance by complementing standardized metrics with new and decomposable surveillance metrics of COVID-19 that overcome data limitations and contamination inherent in public health surveillance systems. In addition to prevalence of observed daily and cumulative testing, testing positivity rates, morbidity, and mortality, we derived COVID-19 transmission in terms of speed, acceleration or deceleration, change in acceleration or deceleration (jerk), and 7-day transmission rate persistence, which explains where and how rapidly COVID-19 is transmitting and quantifies shifts in the rate of acceleration or deceleration to inform policies to mitigate and prevent COVID-19 and food insecurity in SSA. METHODS We extracted 60 days of COVID-19 data from public health registries and employed an empirical difference equation to measure daily case numbers in 47 sub-Saharan countries as a function of the prior number of cases, the level of testing, and weekly shift variables based on a dynamic panel model that was estimated using the generalized method of moments approach by implementing the Arellano-Bond estimator in R. RESULTS Kenya, Ghana, Nigeria, Ethiopia, and South Africa have the most observed cases of COVID-19, and the Seychelles, Eritrea, Mauritius, Comoros, and Burundi have the fewest. In contrast, the <i>speed</i>, <i>acceleration</i>, <i>jerk</i>, <i>and 7-day persistence</i> indicate rates of COVID-19 transmissions differ from observed cases. In September 2020, Cape Verde, Namibia, Eswatini, and South Africa had the highest speed of COVID-19 transmissions at 13.1, 7.1, 3.6, and 3 infections per 100,0000, respectively; Zimbabwe had an acceleration rate of transmission, while Zambia had the largest rate of deceleration this week compared to last week, referred to as a <i>jerk</i>. Finally, the 7-day persistence rate indicates the number of cases on September 15, 2020, which are a function of new infections from September 8, 2020, decreased in South Africa from 216.7 to 173.2 and Ethiopia from 136.7 to 106.3 per 100,000. The statistical approach was validated based on the regression results; they determined recent changes in the pattern of infection, and during the weeks of September 1-8 and September 9-15, there were substantial country differences in the evolution of the SSA pandemic. This change represents a decrease in the transmission model R value for that week and is consistent with a de-escalation in the pandemic for the sub-Saharan African continent in general. CONCLUSIONS Standard surveillance metrics such as daily observed new COVID-19 cases or deaths are necessary but insufficient to mitigate and prevent COVID-19 transmission. Public health leaders also need to know where COVID-19 transmission rates are accelerating or decelerating, whether those rates increase or decrease over short time frames because the pandemic can quickly escalate, and how many cases today are a function of new infections 7 days ago. Even though SSA is home to some of the poorest countries in the world, development and population size are not necessarily predictive of COVID-19 transmission, meaning higher income countries like the United States can learn from African countries on how best to implement mitigation and prevention efforts. INTERNATIONAL REGISTERED REPORT RR2-10.2196/21955

scholarly journals A SARS-CoV-2 Surveillance System in Sub-Saharan Africa: Modeling Study for Persistence and Transmission to Inform Policy

10.2196/24248 ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (11) ◽  
pp. e24248
Author(s):  
Lori Ann Post ◽  
Salem T Argaw ◽  
Cameron Jones ◽  
Charles B Moss ◽  
Danielle Resnick ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
South Africa ◽  
Food Insecurity ◽  
Generalized Method Of Moments ◽  
The United States ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Reporting Practices ◽  
Data Limitations ◽  
The World ◽  
Sub Saharan

Background Since the novel coronavirus emerged in late 2019, the scientific and public health community around the world have sought to better understand, surveil, treat, and prevent the disease, COVID-19. In sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), many countries responded aggressively and decisively with lockdown measures and border closures. Such actions may have helped prevent large outbreaks throughout much of the region, though there is substantial variation in caseloads and mortality between nations. Additionally, the health system infrastructure remains a concern throughout much of SSA, and the lockdown measures threaten to increase poverty and food insecurity for the subcontinent’s poorest residents. The lack of sufficient testing, asymptomatic infections, and poor reporting practices in many countries limit our understanding of the virus’s impact, creating a need for better and more accurate surveillance metrics that account for underreporting and data contamination. Objective The goal of this study is to improve infectious disease surveillance by complementing standardized metrics with new and decomposable surveillance metrics of COVID-19 that overcome data limitations and contamination inherent in public health surveillance systems. In addition to prevalence of observed daily and cumulative testing, testing positivity rates, morbidity, and mortality, we derived COVID-19 transmission in terms of speed, acceleration or deceleration, change in acceleration or deceleration (jerk), and 7-day transmission rate persistence, which explains where and how rapidly COVID-19 is transmitting and quantifies shifts in the rate of acceleration or deceleration to inform policies to mitigate and prevent COVID-19 and food insecurity in SSA. Methods We extracted 60 days of COVID-19 data from public health registries and employed an empirical difference equation to measure daily case numbers in 47 sub-Saharan countries as a function of the prior number of cases, the level of testing, and weekly shift variables based on a dynamic panel model that was estimated using the generalized method of moments approach by implementing the Arellano-Bond estimator in R. Results Kenya, Ghana, Nigeria, Ethiopia, and South Africa have the most observed cases of COVID-19, and the Seychelles, Eritrea, Mauritius, Comoros, and Burundi have the fewest. In contrast, the speed, acceleration, jerk, and 7-day persistence indicate rates of COVID-19 transmissions differ from observed cases. In September 2020, Cape Verde, Namibia, Eswatini, and South Africa had the highest speed of COVID-19 transmissions at 13.1, 7.1, 3.6, and 3 infections per 100,0000, respectively; Zimbabwe had an acceleration rate of transmission, while Zambia had the largest rate of deceleration this week compared to last week, referred to as a jerk. Finally, the 7-day persistence rate indicates the number of cases on September 15, 2020, which are a function of new infections from September 8, 2020, decreased in South Africa from 216.7 to 173.2 and Ethiopia from 136.7 to 106.3 per 100,000. The statistical approach was validated based on the regression results; they determined recent changes in the pattern of infection, and during the weeks of September 1-8 and September 9-15, there were substantial country differences in the evolution of the SSA pandemic. This change represents a decrease in the transmission model R value for that week and is consistent with a de-escalation in the pandemic for the sub-Saharan African continent in general. Conclusions Standard surveillance metrics such as daily observed new COVID-19 cases or deaths are necessary but insufficient to mitigate and prevent COVID-19 transmission. Public health leaders also need to know where COVID-19 transmission rates are accelerating or decelerating, whether those rates increase or decrease over short time frames because the pandemic can quickly escalate, and how many cases today are a function of new infections 7 days ago. Even though SSA is home to some of the poorest countries in the world, development and population size are not necessarily predictive of COVID-19 transmission, meaning higher income countries like the United States can learn from African countries on how best to implement mitigation and prevention efforts. International Registered Report Identifier (IRRID) RR2-10.2196/21955

scholarly journals Barriers to Receiving the Recommended Standard Care During Pregnancy by Illiterate Women in Rural, Northern Tanzania

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dismas Matovelo ◽  
Pendo Ndaki ◽  
Victoria Yohani ◽  
Rose Laisser ◽  
Respicious Bakalemwa ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Health Service ◽  
Patient Care ◽  
Service Providers ◽  
Healthcare Providers ◽  
Continuity Of Patient Care ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Health Crisis ◽  
Health Service Providers ◽  
Health Messaging

Abstract Background: In 2017, an estimated 540 women in Sub-Saharan Africa died every day from preventable causes related to pregnancy and childbirth. To stem this public-health crisis, the WHO recommends a maternal and neonatal health continuity of patient care, yet most women do not meet this recommendation. Surveys suggest that illiteracy limits uptake of the proposed maternal-newborn package, yet little is known about the association between illiteracy and healthcare seeking, particularly in rural regions of low-income countries. This knowledge gap compromises the ability of public health experts and healthcare providers to provide culturally relevant policy and practice. To begin to address this gap this study explores the experiences related to care-seeking by illiterate, pregnant women in rural Tanzania.Methods: A qualitative study was conducted in four communities encompassing eight focus group discussions with 81 illiterate women, 13 interviews with illiterate women of reproductive age and seven interviews with members of these communities perceived to have some influence on women’s decisions concerning perinatal care services. Themes were coded and their relative importance determined using frequency reports and cross-tabulations. Findings: Three key themes emerged, illiterate women (1) could not read their healthcare cards or public health messaging; (2) spoke the local language, not Swahili, the language used by healthcare providers, and (3) have endeavored to develop coping strategies to overcome these obstacles. In addition, health service providers are often unaware of who is illiterate.Recommendations: More health needs of this group could be met, in the short term, by developing a protocol for health service providers to determine who is illiterate, providing translation services for those unable to speak Swahili, and graphic public health messaging that does not require literacy. In the long term, this barrier may be addressed by ensuring that all Tanzanians receive a high-quality, formal education, supporting community health workers, and recruiting healthcare providers from rural areas. A failure of to address the needs of this at-risk group will likely mean that they will continue to experience barriers to achieving the recommended continuity of patient care with detrimental health outcomes for both mothers and newborns.

scholarly journals Shaping service delivery through faith-based service inclusion: the case of the Salvation Army in Zambia

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Janet Davey ◽  
Eldrede Kahiya ◽  
Jayne Krisjanous ◽  
Lucy Sulzberger
Keyword(s):  
Service Delivery ◽  
Service Providers ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Faith Based ◽  
Managerial Implications ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
The Individual

Purpose While service inclusion principles raise the awareness of scholars to service that improves holistic well-being, little research explicitly investigates the spiritual dimensions of service inclusion. This study, therefore, aims to explore faith-based service inclusion in sub-Saharan Africa. Design/methodology/approach A qualitative case study of the Salvation Army’s Chikankata Services in Zambia was undertaken. Semi-structured interviews with the organization’s leaders and professionals were analyzed thematically. Findings Service inclusion pillars evince contextualized meaning and priority. In resource-constrained, vulnerable communities, faith-based service inclusion prioritizes two additional pillars – “fostering eudaimonic well-being” and “giving hope,” where existence is precarious, fostering (hedonic) happiness is of low priority. Findings reveal that pillars and processes are mutually reinforcing, harnessed by the individual and collective agency to realize transformative outcomes from service inclusion. Research limitations/implications This paper provides unique insight into faith-based service inclusion but acknowledges limitations and areas warranting further research. Practical implications The study yields important managerial implications. Service providers can use the framework to identify the contextual priority and/or meaning of service inclusion pillars and relevant reciprocal processes. The framework emphasizes the harnessing potential of individual agency and capability development for transformative well-being. Social implications Faith-based service inclusion, predicated on inclusion, human dignity and holistic well-being, has important implications for reducing the burden on scarce resources while building resilience in communities. Originality/value By examining a faith-based service in sub-Saharan Africa, this paper provides a holistic framework conceptualizing pillars, processes, agency and outcomes to extend Fisk et al.’s (2018) service inclusion pillars and to better understand the shaping of service delivery for service inclusion.

Faith Communities and the Potential for Health Promotion

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alice M. Kiger ◽  
Donna M. Fagan ◽  
Edwin R. van Teijlingen
Keyword(s):  
Health Promotion ◽  
Public Health System ◽  
The United States ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Faith Communities ◽  
Faith Based ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
The World ◽  
National Public Health ◽  
Sub Saharan

Faith communities play an important role in health promotion in some parts of the world, notably North America and sub-Saharan Africa. They appear to be less prominent in the United Kingdom, despite the fact that it is a high-income country with a well-developed national public health system. Faith communities can be instigators of health promotion (faith-based health promotion), or they can provide settings where other agencies can conduct health promotion (faith-placed health promotion). Key opportunities and barriers for faith-based and faith-placed health promotion can be found by drawing on examples from the United States and Africa.

Does counterterrorism militarize foreign aid? Evidence from sub-Saharan Africa

2017 ◽  
Vol 54 (4) ◽  
pp. 527-541 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tobias Heinrich ◽  
Carla Martinez Machain ◽  
Jared Oestman
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Aid ◽  
The United States ◽  
Executive Branch ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Al Qaeda ◽  
Terrorist Organizations ◽  
Military Aid ◽  
Terrorist Groups ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
The Military

This article studies whether the pursuit of counterterrorism militarizes foreign aid flows. It focuses on the case of US foreign aid to sub-Saharan African states, which recently have experienced an increase in the presence of al-Qaeda or its affiliate terrorist organizations. This article argues that as terrorist groups carry out attacks inside a state’s territory, aid towards that state will serve such counterterrorism goals. For one, the state’s executive branch will receive increased military aid to immediately fight al-Qaeda or affiliates. For the other, the United States also steps up aid for civil society and development, which could over time undermine al-Qaeda’s mobilization and recruitment efforts. In an empirical analysis that covers 46 African states from 1996 to 2011, our results largely corroborate the hypothesized patterns for attacks that occur on a country territory and in the neighborhood. We note, though, that the overall composition of aid shifts relative to the military when there are direct attacks, something that does not occur when attacks happen in the neighborhood only. Our article concludes that concerns about militarization of aid are warranted, but that actual manifestations are nuanced.

scholarly journals Research Trends and Collaboration Patterns on Polymyxin Resistance: A Bibliometric Analysis (2010–2019)

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alvaro Quincho-Lopez ◽  
Josmel Pacheco-Mendoza
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
United States ◽  
Latin America ◽  
Central Asia ◽  
Bibliometric Analysis ◽  
The United States ◽  
Scientific Production ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Collaboration Patterns ◽  
Sub Saharan

Background: Antimicrobial resistance is a serious public health problem that has become a global threat. Special attention should be given to polymyxins (polymyxin B and colistin) which, since their reintroduction into clinical practice, are considered “last resort” drugs. The objective of this study is to perform a bibliometric analysis of scientific research on polymyxin resistance.Methods: Scopus was used to retrieve documents relevant to polymyxin resistance from 2010 to 2019. Data was exported to Microsoft Excel for table presentation. SciVal was used for volume and citation analysis as well as collaboration patterns. Also, we extracted data regarding the top documents, authors, countries, institutions, and the metrics of journals. VantagePoint and VOSviewer were used for geographical distribution of worldwide research and keyword co-occurrence analysis, respectively.Results: A total of 1,409 documents were retrieved. The retrieved documents received 25.0 citations per document. Articles (73.88%) and letters (18.09%) were the most frequent types of documents. During 2010–2019, there was a significant growth in publications (p-value &lt; 0.001). The received citations were 35,209 with a peak in 2016 (11,250 citations). China and the United States led the scientific production with 299 (21.2%) and 238 (16.9%) publications, respectively. Little or no contribution came from central Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Latin America. Chinese institutions have caused the greatest impact, with University of Zhejiang (China) being the most prolific institution on the subject (88 documents). In terms of the most productive journals, Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy ranked first with 196 (13.9%) documents. Most of the documents were published in quartile one journals and only had national collaboration (43.2%). Analysis of keyword co-occurrence revealed that research on polymyxin resistance during the last decade has focused on its relationship with public health, pharmacology, and genetics.Conclusion: The number of documents on polymyxin resistance has increased significantly in the recent years, with a steep growth from 2016 onwards. China and the United States led the scientific production. Most of the documents were published in high-quality journals. Greater joint efforts and more contribution from central Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Latin America are still needed to tackle this global problem.

Crowdsourcing Covid-19 signals in sub-Saharan Africa: Leveraging digital contributor networks for participatory surveillance of Covid-19 symptoms and deaths (Preprint)

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ngozi A Erondu ◽  
Sagal A Ali ◽  
Mohamed Ali ◽  
Schadrac C Agbla
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Specific Information ◽  
Surveillance Systems ◽  
Health Seeking ◽  
African Countries ◽  
Cross Sectional Survey ◽  
Local Networks ◽  
The World ◽  
Sub Saharan

BACKGROUND In sub-Saharan Africa, underreporting of cases and deaths has been attributed to various factors including, weak disease surveillance, low health-seeking behaviour of flu like symptoms, and stigma of Covid-19. There is evidence that SARS-CoV-2 spread mimics transmission patterns of other countries across the world. Since the Covid-19 pandemic has changed the way research can be conducted and in light of restrictions on travel and risks to in-person data collection, innovative approaches to collecting data must be considered. Nearly 50% of Africa’s population is a unique mobile subscriber and it is one of the fastest growing smart-phone marketplaces in the world; hence, mobile phone platforms should be considered to monitor Covid-19 trends in the community. OBJECTIVE We demonstrate the use of digital contributor platforms to survey individuals about cases of flu-like symptoms and instances of unexplained deaths in Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria, Somalia, and Zimbabwe. METHODS Rapid cross-sectional survey of individuals with severe flu and pneumonia symptoms and unexplained deaths in Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria, Somalia and Zimbabwe RESULTS Using a non-health specific information platform, we found COVID-19 signals in five African countries, specifically: •Across countries, nearly half of the respondents (n=739) knew someone who had severe flu or pneumonia symptoms in recent months. •One in three respondents from Somalia and one in five from Zimbabwe respondents said they knew more than five people recently displaying flu and/or pneumonia symptoms. •In Somalia there were signals that a large number of people might be dying outside of health facilities, specifically in their homes or in IDP or refugee camps. CONCLUSIONS Existing digital contributor platforms with local networks are a non-traditional data source that can provide information from the community to supplement traditional government surveillance systems and academic surveys. We demonstrate that using these distributor networks to for community surveys can provide periodic information on rumours but could also be used to capture local sentiment to inform public health decision-making; for example, these insights could be useful to inform strategies to increase confidence in Covid19 vaccine. As Covid-19 continues to spread somewhat silently across sub-Saharan Africa, regional and national public health entities should consider expanding event-based surveillance sources to include these systems.

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