scholarly journals HIV/AIDS among young women in Malawi: A review of risk factors and Interventions

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
Author(s):  
McDonald William Nyalapa ◽  
Cath Conn

Young women aged 10-24 years in Malawi currently experience HIV prevalence of about 5%.  This high HIV prevalence amongst young women reflects a heart-breaking feature of the serious epidemic in southern Africa for the past five years. Given the serious situation it is vital to understand the risk factors faced by young women of Malawi, and further understanding of the interventions necessary to address the problem. A narrative review set out to explore the literature, retrieved from institutional reports and peer-reviewed publications, on the factors increasing young women’s vulnerability to HIV in Malawi, and on interventions aimed at reducing their risk. Young women in Malawi are particularly vulnerable to HIV infection as a result of poverty, harmful gender norms, and economic and social inequities. Whilst there are some interventions in place, in the face of such a disproportionately difficult social and socio-economic environment, lack of resources and other systemic gaps, these are not sufficiently effective. Given the scale of the problem and the difficult environment experienced by young women, effective HIV prevention interventions remain critical. Further research is required to establish appropriate and effective interventions, and to address the social determinants of health, especially in relation to gender and rights.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Denis Vadymovich Zherdev ◽  
Vladimir Lazarevich Nazarov ◽  
Natalya Vladimirovna Averbukh

This article is devoted to the preparation of an information base for the formation of criteria for assessing the process of general (secondary) education informatization. The situation in education can be considered as unstable, lacking a clear understanding of the social, psychological and technological prospects for the Russian and world communities’ development, which excludes the possibility of correct strategic planning and making correct management decisions. The development source of uncertainty is the very transitional nature of the current situation in ICT — equally in the technological, economic, sociocultural and psychological aspects. The research problematizes the well-established idea of the modern relations of education and ICT, emphasize the lack of empirical data and the bias towards a normative approach in the field of managerial decisions, which in the face of uncertainty leads to the adoption of erroneous decisions (a tactics and strategy contradiction). The research has determined the prospects for a monitoring research system designed to obtain the necessary empirical data in the system, taking into account the change in the technological and sociocultural paradigm over the past decade. Keywords: information society, digitalization of education, efficiency in education, digital divide, resistance to innovation


Author(s):  
Michal Kozubik ◽  
Jitse P. van Dijk ◽  
Daniela Filakovska Bobakova

Augustini studied Roma and published reports in 1775–1776 on their illnesses and death. Our intention was to compare the features of these two topics described by him in the late 18th century with those in the present time. We studied Augustini’s work on illnesses and death in the past. The present qualitative study was conducted in 2012–2013 in the same geographical area in which Augustini lived and worked more than two hundred years ago, i.e., the Tatra Region in Slovakia; our findings were evaluated in 2017–2018. We carried out semi-structured interviews with more than 70 informants and organised two sessions of focus groups. Data were analysed using content analysis (Augustini) and an open coding process. Our findings suggest that illnesses in Roma are treated differently nowadays compared with 1775–1776. For example, the traditional forms of healing have completely disappeared in the area of investigation. We did not observe any differences in dying and death perceptions between the past and nowadays. Although data and knowledge on health disparities and related mechanisms exist, and much more about perceptions of Roma regarding illnesses is now known compared with 1775–1776, so far, this knowledge has not helped to design effective interventions to overcome them. Substandard living conditions in marginalised Roma communities have not significantly improved since 1775–1776, which may contribute to their higher morbidity and mortality also nowadays. Political and social consensus should lead to a comprehensive vision for enhancing the social situation and living conditions in segregated settlements, especially providing housing for the poorest classes and overcoming health disparities.


2012 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 38-81 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ma So Mui

Abstract Over the period October 2006-July 2008, the author conducted a detailed survey of five historic buildings in Malaya constructed by 19th-century Chinese immigrants. These buildings feature roof decorations made in and imported from Shiwan 石灣, China, during that period. The decorations include scenes and figurines representing events and characters taken from Cantonese operas, Chinese legends and classical novels. In studying these decorations the author has come across several recurring themes illustrating concepts such as justice, sworn brotherhood, loyalty and courage in the face of adversity, which shed light on the cultural identities and thinking of the Cantonese migrants. In this paper these themes are interpreted against the background of the social and political circumstances in China and Southeast Asia during the period under discussion, showing how an understanding of the concerns of these Chinese migrants of the past can help one to understand contemporary migrant communities worldwide.


Author(s):  
Pavel Yu. Uvarov ◽  
◽  

This essay contains reflections on a new book by renowned historian Denis Crouzet on children’s violence, and, more broadly, on the image of children during the French Wars of Religion. In the book under review, the novelty lies in the fact that the images of ‘innocent infants’ make part of a separate plot. Just as novel are Denis Crouzet’s reflections on the ‘sources of inspiration’ of the young French persecutors of heretics. The author indicates the anthropological correspondences inherent in the culture of both Italian and French cities, such as the carnivalesque inversion of the ‘world inside out’ and the social function of youth associations taking part in the ‘charivari’ rites. Denis Crouzet pays attention to sources that are novel to him, like children’s Christmas chants, mystery plays, and ‘miracles’. While impersonating the Innocents persecuted by Herod but also angels carrying retaliation to this villain, urban children learnt what and how to do in the face of a carnival challenge. The ways to leave the eschatological activism are of particular interest. After 1572, the gangs of executioners-children left the scene. Only the murder of the Guises on Christmas Day, 1588, threw crowds of children into the streets of Paris. Now they were described differently, however, — as a disciplined mass, occupied not with outrages but with prayers. The author speaks of ‘Catholic consciousness’, but that was already a different reformed Catholicism, departing further and further from the old ‘corporate Catholicism’. The religious political activity of children would become a thing of the past, however. The image of an innocent child would once more be in demand only after the Revolution, when, this time in a desacralised context, children became the embodiment of the French nation.


Author(s):  
Violet Soen

“The” nobility is a slippery fish to catch, especially for the Renaissance and Reformation era, here understood as the two centuries between 1450 and 1650. Historians inevitably face the methodological problem of whether to define “nobility” according to juridical, social or cultural criteria. Over the past decades, they have abandoned a legal and essentialist interpretation in favor of a sociological and anthropological approach. Even if legal, fiscal, and social privileges persisted in “the making of” the nobility during the ancien régime, it is now widely acknowledged that the social composition of the group constantly changed, leading to an immense diversity among its members across Europe and the colonies. Likewise, it is accepted today that both the Renaissance and Reformation profoundly changed the cultural and ideological concept of “nobility” itself. These novel insights replace the older 19th-century paradigm claiming that from the late Middle Ages onward the nobility was in long-lasting crisis, losing its power and status to a rising bourgeoisie. Instead of this linear interpretation, a new consensus emerged around a persistent rise and decline among nobilities (not of the group as such), and their remarkable resilience in the face of state-building, religious change, and economic upheaval between 1450 and 1650.


2013 ◽  
Vol 2013 ◽  
pp. 1-6 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric A. Ratliff ◽  
Sheryl A. McCurdy ◽  
Jessie K. K. Mbwambo ◽  
Barrot H. Lambdin ◽  
Ancella Voets ◽  
...  

In the past decade, Tanzania has seen a rapid rise in the number of people who inject drugs (PWID), specifically heroin. While the overall HIV prevalence in Tanzania has declined recently to 5.6%, in 2009, the HIV prevalence among PWID remains alarmingly high at 35%. In this paper, we describe how the Tanzania AIDS Prevention Program (TAPP), Médecins du Monde France (MdM-F), and other organisations have been at the forefront of addressing this public health issue in Africa, implementing a wide array of harm reduction interventions including medication-assisted treatment (MAT), needle and syringe programs (NSP), and “sober houses” for residential treatment in the capital, Dar es Salaam, and in Zanzibar. Looking toward the future, we discuss the need to (1)extendexisting services and programs to reach more PWID and others at risk for HIV, (2)developadditional programs to strengthen existing programs, and (3)expandactivities to include structural interventions to address vulnerabilities that increase HIV risk for all Tanzanians.


1953 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 446-469 ◽  
Author(s):  
Norman Jacobson

Almost every period of crisis and decision in American history has produced writers on political affairs who have championed a “realistic” approach to the study of human and social problems. Convinced that successful political action must proceed from man “as he is,” such writers have been persistently and profoundly suspicious of theories which, they believe, are based either upon faulty assessments of the actual nature of the individual or upon visionary estimates of his potentialities. It is the opinion of these analysts that the nature of man is irrevocably fixed in its partially depraved and partially irrational career—a constant, as it were, among the myriad imponderables entering into the social equation. Thus it has long been a significant part of their method to attempt to discover in the experience of the past a coherent theory of limits applicable to contemporary political society. Eager to profit from the experience of other generations with the perennial problems of government and politics, they have generally displayed little tolerance toward those who would flaunt rationally grounded political experiment in the face of the practical lessons of history. Such combination of pessimistic analysis and resort to the experience of the past—Political Realism —has played a crucial role in the history of political thought in America.


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