scholarly journals Pattern of Blood Pressure Indices among the Residents of a Rural Community in South East Nigeria

2011 ◽  
Vol 2011 ◽  
pp. 1-6 ◽  
Author(s):  
B. J. C. Onwubere ◽  
E. C. Ejim ◽  
C. I. Okafor ◽  
A. Emehel ◽  
A. U. Mbah ◽  
...  

Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) are the main causes of death in industrialized countries, and are significant causes of morbidity and mortality in sub-Saharan Africa. Hypertension is the most common cardiovascular disease in Nigerians, and the risk of CVD associated with hypertension is independent of other risk factors. Despite the high level of awareness of its presence in the developed countries, the level of control is still poor. CVDs tend to be commoner in urban settlements, and it has been hypothesized that rural sub-Saharan Africa is at an early stage of epidemiological transition from communicable to non-communicable diseases (NCD) because of the gradual adoption of unhealthy lifestyles. This study aimed at describing the pattern of blood pressure indices among the hypertensive residents of a rural community in South East Nigeria. A total of 858 individuals comprising 247 males and 611 females took part in the study. 46.4% of the subjects had hypertension. Hypertension was commoner in the males (50.2% vs. 44.8%) . The males were significantly older and heavier than the females while the females had higher mean values of BMI and WC. The prevalence of hypertension is becoming alarmingly high in the rural communities of sub-Saharan Africa.

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sándor Szabó ◽  
Irene Pinedo Pascua ◽  
Daniel Puig ◽  
Magda Moner-Girona ◽  
Mario Negre ◽  
...  

AbstractLack of access to modern forms of energy hampers efforts to reduce poverty. The provision of electricity to off-grid communities is therefore a long-standing developmental goal. Yet, many off-grid electrification projects neglect mid- and long-term operation and maintenance costs. When this is the case, electricity services are unlikely to be affordable to the communities that are the project’s primary target. Here we show that, compared with diesel-powered electricity generation systems, solar photovoltaic systems are more affordable to no less than 36% of the unelectrified populations in East Asia, South Asia, and sub-Saharan Africa. We do so by developing geo-referenced estimates of affordability at a high level of resolution (1 km2). The analysis illustrates the differences in affordability that may be found at the subnational level, which underscores that electrification investments should be informed by subnational data.


Author(s):  
A. J. Adeloye ◽  
F. D. Mwale ◽  
Z. Dulanya

Abstract. In response to the increasing frequency and economic damages of natural disasters globally, disaster risk management has evolved to incorporate risk assessments that are multi-dimensional, integrated and metric-based. This is to support knowledge-based decision making and hence sustainable risk reduction. In Malawi and most of Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), however, flood risk studies remain focussed on understanding causation, impacts, perceptions and coping and adaptation measures. Using the IPCC Framework, this study has quantified and profiled risk to flooding of rural, subsistent communities in the Lower Shire Valley, Malawi. Flood risk was obtained by integrating hazard and vulnerability. Flood hazard was characterised in terms of flood depth and inundation area obtained through hydraulic modelling in the valley with Lisflood-FP, while the vulnerability was indexed through analysis of exposure, susceptibility and capacity that were linked to social, economic, environmental and physical perspectives. Data on these were collected through structured interviews of the communities. The implementation of the entire analysis within GIS enabled the visualisation of spatial variability in flood risk in the valley. The results show predominantly medium levels in hazardousness, vulnerability and risk. The vulnerability is dominated by a high to very high susceptibility. Economic and physical capacities tend to be predominantly low but social capacity is significantly high, resulting in overall medium levels of capacity-induced vulnerability. Exposure manifests as medium. The vulnerability and risk showed marginal spatial variability. The paper concludes with recommendations on how these outcomes could inform policy interventions in the Valley.


2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (9) ◽  
pp. 156-177
Author(s):  
Aliyu Alhaji Jibrilla

This study addresses the question of financial development and institutional quality influence on the environmental sustainability of some 13 countries from the sub-Saharan Africa. Relying upon pooled mean group (PMG) for panel data, we provide evidence which suggest that both financial development and institutional quality are statistically significant determinants of per capita carbon dioxide emissions in the region. More specifically, we found that without healthy institutions and sound financial system sub-Saharan African countries might not avoid environmental degradation experienced by advanced nations during their early stage of economic progress. Our results also support the EKC hypothesis in the region.  In addition, the paper also shows that more openness to FDI inflows is good for the environment across the SSA. These findings suggest the need for institutional and financial service reform that supports robust environmental conservation.


2003 ◽  
Vol 42 (2) ◽  
pp. 167-169
Author(s):  
Samina Nazli

Raising the standards of literacy in the developing world has been a major goal of the less developed countries since most of them became independent in the process of decolonisation that followed World War II. The Human Development Report 2004, brought out by the United Nations Development Programme lists some major improvements in increasing literacy levels of a number of countries between the year 1990 and 2002. For example, low human development countries like Togo increased their adult literacy rates from 44.2 percent in 1990 to 59.6 percent in 2002. Congo saw an increase in its literacy rate for the same period from 67.1 percent to 82.8 percent. The rates for Uganda, Kenya, Yemen, and Nigeria are 56.1 percent and 68.9 percent, 70.8 percent and 84.3 percent, 32.7 percent and 49.0 percent, and 48.7 percent and 68.8 percent respectively. If one examines the breakdown by region, the least developed countries as a group saw an increase in their adult literacy rates from 43.0 percent to 52.5 percent, the Arab states from 50.8 percent to 63.3 percent, South Asia from 47.0 percent to 57.6 percent, Sub-Saharan Africa from 50.8 percent to 63.2 percent and East Asia and the Pacific from 79.8 percent to 90.3 percent. If we look at the increase in the levels of literacy from the perspective of medium human development and low human development, the figures are 71.8 percent and 80.4 percent, and 42.5 percent and 54.3 percent, respectively.


1988 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 473-493 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. B. Knight

South Africa has neither a developed nor a typical underdeveloped economy. Too often it has been wrongly classified, along with, say, Australia and New Zealand, as one of the peripheral developed countries, because only a part of the economy and population have the characteristics we associate with that group. Yet its economy is distinctly different from others in sub-Saharan Africa. South Africa falls squarely into the category which the World Bank classifies as ‘upper middle-income’ developing economies, with G.N.P. per capita in 1982 ranging from $2,000 to $7,000 and averaging $2,500, thereby including South Africa, with $2,700.1 (By contrast, Kenya's G.N.P. per capita was $400 and Britain's $10,000). The World Bank's group includes Algeria, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, South Korea, Venezuela, and Yugoslavia. South Africa shares many structural economic characteristics with these semi-industrialised countries.


2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. 420-421
Author(s):  
Andrew Banda ◽  
Norah Keating ◽  
Jaco Hoffman ◽  
Jose Parodi ◽  
Nereide Curreri

Abstract In their recent volume, Critical Rural Gerontology, Skinner et al (2021) challenge us to set aside unidimensional notions of rural communities as bypassed vs very supportive; and to identify the elements of rurality that empower or exclude older people and how these differ across cultures and settings. Covid-19 has highlighted the need for safe and inclusive communities. Given that LMIC will be home to the majority of older adults (Gonzales et al. 2015), we undertook a scoping review of features of rural communities that influence wellbeing of older people in countries across Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa. The review included literature in English, French, Spanish and Portuguese, using search engines MEDLINE, CINAHL Complete, PsycInfo, SocINDEX, SciELO, AJOL (Africa Journals Online), LILACS, Redalyc, LatinIndex and Clacso. Findings illustrate diversity in how community features including remoteness, infrastructure and belonging influence material, social and subjective wellbeing of older residents.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarra Kchouk ◽  
Pieter van Oel ◽  
Lieke Melsen

<p>Drought Early Warning Systems (DEWS) and Drought Monitoring Systems (DMS) are the principal tools used to tackle drought at an early stage and reduce the possibility of harm or loss. They are based on the use of drought indicators attributed to either : meteorological, agricultural and hydrological drought. This means that it is mostly hydro-climatic variables that are used to determine the onset, end and severity of a drought.  Drought impacts are rarely continuously monitored or even not included in DEWS and DMS. In this configuration, the likelihood of experiencing impacts is linearly linked to the severity of climatic features only. The aim of our study is to question the direct linkage between the delivery of hydro-climatic information and the detection of drought impacts and their severity. We reviewed scientific literature on drought drivers and impacts and analyzed how these two compare. We conducted a bibliometric analysis based on 4000+ scientific studies sorted by geographic area in which selected (i) drought indicators and (ii) impacts of drought were mentioned. Our review points toward an attachment to a conceptual view of drought by the main and broader use of meteorological (computed and remotely sensed) drought indicators. Studies reporting impacts related to food and water securities are more localized, respectively in Sub-Saharan Africa and Australasia. This mismatch suggests a tendency to translate hydroclimatic indicators of drought directly into impacts while neglecting relevant local contextual information. With the aim of sharpening the information provided by DEWS and DMS, we argue in favor of an additional consideration of drought indicators oriented towards the SDGs.</p>


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Olumide Olaoye ◽  
Cleopatra Oluseye Ibukun ◽  
Mustafa Razzak ◽  
Naftaly Mose

PurposeThe paper analyses the prevalence of extreme and multidimensional poverty in line with the sustainable development agenda. In addition, the paper examines the drivers of extreme poverty while accounting for the potential spillover effect of poverty in the region.Design/methodology/approachThe study adopts the pooled OLS with Discroll-Kraay robust standard errors to control for cross-sectional dependence. In addition, given the strong potential for endogeneity of poverty index, the authors also employ the generalized method of moments (GMM), which accounts for simultaneity and endogeneity problems, and the spatial error and lag models to control for all forms of spatial and temporal dependence since the factors that affect poverty disperse across borders.FindingsThe study finds that in addition to the traditional drivers of poverty (unemployment, low per capita GDP growth and public debt), poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa is a symptom of a deeper structural problem (lack of access to water and sanitation, high level of corruption and low level of financial development, and frequent economic busts). Likewise, the results from the spatial econometric specification show, consistently across all the specifications, that there is a substantial spillover effect of poverty across the region.Originality/valueThe main novelty of the paper is that the authors investigate the “economic shrinkage hypothesis,” and examined the potential negative spillover effect of poverty in the region.


Author(s):  
John Njeru

The epidemiology of Enterococcus faecium, Staphylococcus aureus, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Acinetobacter baumannii, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and Enterobacter species (ESKAPE) and their role in the development and spread of multidrug resistance (MDR) is not well characterized in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Carbapenems possess a broad spectrum of activity and are often reserved for the treatment of MDR infections in developed countries. However, the emergence of carbapenem resistance is increasingly being reported and therefore presents a significant public health threat. Although carbapenems are generally unavailable in African hospitals due to high cost, a small number of studies have reported the occurrence of carbapenem-resistant bacteria (CRB) in SSA. This, therefore, shows that carbapenem resistance (CR) is emerging in Africa. Thus, there is a critical need for deploying robust national and regional multidisciplinary, collaborative, and regulatory approaches aiming at elucidating the epidemiology of CR, its burden on the health care system, and strategies for compacting the development and spread of CR. This report hopes to highlight the epidemiology of carbapenem resistance and the main drivers of antibiotic resistance in SSA and proposes future strategies that can be used to combat the emergence of carbapenem resistance in the region


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