Peri-urban water, sanitation and hygiene in Lusaka, Zambia: photovoice empowering local assessment via ecological theory

2021 ◽  
pp. 175797592199571
Author(s):  
Sikopo Nyambe ◽  
Taro Yamauchi
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Public Policy ◽  
Health Hazard ◽  
Disease Outbreaks ◽  
Ecological Theory ◽  
Urban Slum ◽  
Health Concern ◽  
Minimal Impact ◽  
Sanitation And Hygiene ◽  
Definition Of

Water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) factors are responsible for 11.4% of deaths in Zambia, making WASH a key public health concern. Despite annual waterborne disease outbreaks in the nation’s peri-urban (slum) settlements being linked to poor WASH, few studies have proactively analysed and conceptualised peri-urban WASH and its maintaining factors. Our study aimed to (a) establish residents’ definition of peri-urban WASH and their WASH priorities; and (b) use ecological theory to analyse the peri-urban WASH ecosystem, highlighting maintaining factors. Our study incorporated 16 young people (aged 17–24) residing in peri-urban Lusaka, Zambia in a photovoice exercise. Participants took photographs answering the framing question, ‘What is WASH in your community?’ Then, through contextualisation and basic codifying, participants told the stories of their photographs and made posters to summarise problems and WASH priorities. Participant contextualisation and codifying further underwent theoretical thematic analysis to pinpoint causal factors alongside key players, dissecting the peri-urban WASH ecosystem via the five-tier ecological theory ranging from intrapersonal to public policy levels. Via ecological theory, peri-urban WASH was defined as: (a) poor practice (intrapersonal, interpersonal); (b) a health hazard (community norm); (c) substandard and unregulated (public policy, organisational); and (d) offering hope for change (intrapersonal, interpersonal). Linked to these themes, participant findings revealed a community level gap, with public policy level standards, regulations and implementation having minimal impact on overall peri-urban WASH and public health due to shallow community engagement and poor acknowledgement of the WASH realities of high-density locations. Rather than a top-down approach, participants recommended increased government–resident collaboration, offering residents more ownership and empowerment for intervention, implementation and defending of preferred peri-urban WASH standards.

scholarly journals An epidemiological study of the prevalence and determinants of overweight and obesity in women of reproductive age (15 to 49 years) group in an urban slum

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (5) ◽  
pp. 2460
Author(s):  
Pratibha U. Mulik ◽  
Sudam R. Suryawanshi
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Physical Exercise ◽  
Significant Relationship ◽  
Public Health Problem ◽  
Urban Slum ◽  
Overweight And Obesity ◽  
Reproductive Age ◽  
Health Concern ◽  
Age Group ◽  
History Of

Background: After comparing data of NFHS-3 and 4, prevalence of overweight and obesity in women of an urban population almost doubled in 10 yr. So, the causes of increasing prevalence need to be studied as public health concern. Objective of the study is to determine prevalence of overweight and obesity among reproductive age group (15-49 years) of women in an urban slum of Mumbai.Methods: Total 220 women were selected among 11 sectors from A to K by simple random method and data collected by using validated questionnaire. WHO’s classification was used to classify as overweight and obese.Results: Out of 220 women participated in study, 14 (6.36%) were obese, 75 (34.09%) were overweight according to BMI and 17 (7.7%) were found to be obese according to waist to hip ratio. From the present study it was seen that age group of the women, socio economic class, education, history of hypothyroidism, family history of obesity, types of work women do, hours of television watching, calorie and fat intake, had a significant relationship with BMI, whereas physical exercise they used to do and tendency to sleep in the afternoon and hours of sleep in the night had non-significant relationship with BMI.Conclusions: Obesity and overweight is found to be a growing public health problem and can be preventable. Interventional measures include developing healthy eating habits, regular moderate physical exercise, sleeping habits, health camps for screening of overweight and obesity.

scholarly journals Microbial Exposure Assessment of Fresh and Smoked Pork Meat within Ado-Ekiti Metropolis, Nigeria

2021 ◽  
pp. 41-49
Author(s):  
P. I. Orjiakor ◽  
G. O. Adaran ◽  
N. O. Anyanwu ◽  
S. O. Otiwa ◽  
R. Adams
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Health Hazard ◽  
Health Concern ◽  
Salmonella Spp ◽  
Diffusion Technique ◽  
Production Environments ◽  
Shigella Spp ◽  
Penicillium Spp ◽  
Foodborne Infections ◽  
Potential Public Health

The breeding and production environments of pigs tend to be exposed to microbial contaminations and could portend a potential public health hazard if not well managed. This study investigated bacterial and fungal loads of commercial fresh and smoked pork in order to ascertain their wholesomeness. Total aerobic bacterial and fungal count were done on nutrient agar and potato dextrose agar respectively, while antimicrobial susceptibility test to selected commercial antibiotic discs carried out using Disk Diffusion Technique.  All the twenty samples (Fresh and Smoked) cultured yielded bacterial growth with a range of 2.2 - 9.0 × 104 CFU/g (smoked) to 1.0 – 6.3 × 106 CFU/g (fresh). On the other hand, the fungal loads ranges from 1.0 – 6.0 × 102 CFU/g(smoked) to 1.0 -5.0 × 104 CFU/g (fresh). The bacterial isolated and the ratios in fresh and smoked samples wereStaphylococcus aureus (6: 11), Escherichia coli (5: 8), Bacillus cereus (4: 7), Salmonella spp. (2: 3), Proteus spp. (0: 4), Enterobacter spp. (1: 2), Shigella spp. (0:2) and  Pseudomonas aeruginosa (1: 0), while their fungal counterpart included Aspergillus niger (4: 2), Aspergillus terreus (2; 2),Fusarium oxysporum(4: 0), Penicillium spp. (4: 2), Rhizopus spp. (3: 5), Mucor spp. (0: 4); Geotricum candidum (0: 2) and Microsporium spp. (0: 2).  Most of the S.aureus (> 58.8%) and P. aeruginosa (100%), and B. cereus (100%) demonstrated remarkable resistance to the majority of the tested antibiotics. These findings are of public health concern because most of the bacterial and fungal isolates have been implicated in foodborne infections. Hence, there is a need for stricter sanitary measures during the rearing and production to reduce the level of microbial contaminations.

Introduction

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
James Wilson
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Public Policy ◽  
Health Policy ◽  
Medical Ethics ◽  
Public Health Policy ◽  
Ethical Reflection ◽  
Health It ◽  
Philosophical Reflection ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Definition Of

This chapter introduces the book’s main themes. It explains why public health policy matters, and why public policy requires ethical and philosophical reflection. It introduces debates around the definition of disease and illness, and debates about the definition of public health. It examines why public health was initially largely excluded from the purview of medical ethics and bioethics in the 1960s and following decades, and some of the drivers behind the rise of ethical reflection on public health since 2000. It also briefly introduces the structure of the rest of the book.

Late-Life Suicide

1992 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 163-163 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kazuo Hasegawa ◽  
Sanford I. Finkel ◽  
Manfred Bergener ◽  
Gene D. Cohen
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Public Policy ◽  
Older People ◽  
Late Life ◽  
Research Interest ◽  
Health Concern ◽  
Public Health Concern ◽  
Major Public Health Concern ◽  
Suicide Rates

Suicide rates for older people are increasing worldwide, thereby creating a major public health concern. There has been an absence of public policy and research interest in this area, although the needs are pressing and promise to be even more so.

scholarly journals Delinquency as the Failure of Adults and the Village to Exercise Their Moral Strength

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (10) ◽  
pp. 518-527
Author(s):  
Evaristus Obinyan ◽  
Charles O. Ochie ◽  
Patrick Ik. Ibe
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Cultural Values ◽  
Health Hazard ◽  
Delinquent Behavior ◽  
Moral Integrity ◽  
Deviant Behaviors ◽  
Unacceptable Behavior ◽  
Moral Superiority ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The Village

This paper examines multiple relationships among several concepts to determine common causes to delinquency and to suggest intelligence-based alternative to resolve this public health hazard. Juvenile crime has become a public health hazard because the regularity, brutality and impunity by which juveniles commit their crimes these days is indescribable and their state of mind is “unplaced”. Delinquency may be defined as the behavior consequent to the failure of adults and the village to exercise their moral superiority and integrity to produce behavior that conforms to standards set as norms with some degree of consistency in a society to which legal sanctions are leveled (Obinyan, E. 2011). Adult's moral superiority may be defined as the ability to recognize the differences between acceptable and unacceptable behavior….Adult's moral integrity may be defined as the ability of individual adults to refrain from unacceptable behavior and to communicate to youths through example, conventional acceptable behavior (Obinyan, 2011).Village moral superiority entails the ability of each group, community or the society at large to establish norms that are consistent with cultural values. Village moral integrity entails the ability of the village as a whole to uphold, reinforce, and consistently demonstrate and communicate the sanctity of these cultural norms. Moral strength, therefore is the combined effect of the village and adult’s moral superiority and integrity (Obinyan). Children and youth social contexts are important contributors of problem behavior (Dishion, Forgatch, VanRyzin, & Winter, 2012; Dodge, 1983). In deviant peer groups, it is common for youth to engage in deviancy training wherein deviant behaviors are reinforced such that discussion of rule-breaking behavior is linked with a positive consequence (e.g., affirmation; Dishion, Spracklen, Andrews, & Patterson, 1996). Youth association with deviant peers is associated with many problematic outcomes (e.g., drug use, violence; Dishion, Eddy, Haas, Li, & Spracklen, 1997; Dision, Capaldi, Spracklen, & Li, 1995; Dishion & Patterson, 2006).Delinquency results when there is a relative absence of adult and village action, such as lack of moral integrity and respect for societal norms, a breakdown of unofficial social control and adult and the village inability to agree on the definition of what behavior may be regarded as delinquent. This is why delinquency may be seen as a function of the type of relationships between adults and the village, and their perception of and attitude toward delinquency. For a particular person however, the definition of delinquency may depend greatly upon their cultural background and the inability of the adult and the village to properly use their moral superiority and integrity to impact on all members of their communities. In most cases, the relative weakness of adult and village moral strength should account for the delinquent behavior. When delinquent recidivism becomes a problem and a continuation of delinquent behavior is consistent and intensifies, we would expect that the steam or vitality of adult and village moral strength (moral superiority and integrity) has been let out.

Reframing Fatness: Critiquing ‘Obesity’

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bethan Evans ◽  
Charlotte Cooper
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Weight Loss ◽  
Michel Foucault ◽  
Overweight And Obesity ◽  
Health Concern ◽  
Public Health Concern ◽  
Policy Language ◽  
Religious Imagery ◽  
Fat Bodies

Over the last twenty years or so, fatness, pathologised as overweight and obesity, has been a core public health concern around which has grown a lucrative international weight loss industry. Referred to as a ‘time bomb’ and ‘the terror within’, analogies of ‘war’ circulate around obesity, framing fatness as enemy.2 Religious imagery and cultural and moral ideologies inform medical, popular and policy language with the ‘sins’ of ‘gluttony’ and ‘sloth’, evoked to frame fat people as immoral at worst and unknowledgeable victims at best, and understandings of fatness intersect with gender, class, age, sexuality, disability and race to make some fat bodies more problematically fat than others. As Evans and Colls argue, drawing on Michel Foucault, a combination of medical and moral knowledges produces the powerful ‘obesity truths’ through which fatness is framed as universally abject and pathological. Dominant and medicalised discourses of fatness (as obesity) leave little room for alternative understandings.

European Surveillance of Antimicrobial Consumption: the ESAC programme

2004 ◽  
Vol 8 (32) ◽  
Author(s):  
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Antimicrobial Resistance ◽  
Health Concern ◽  
Antimicrobial Consumption ◽  
Public Health Concern ◽  
Major Public Health Concern

Resistance to antimicrobials has become a major public health concern, and it has been shown that there is a relationship, albeit complex, between antimicrobial resistance and consumption

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