Social determinants of HIV infection among men who have sex with men in the Philippines

Since 2007, the number of prevalent HIV cases in the Philippines has been growing exponentially each year. In 2014, 84% of the new cases were attributed to sexual transmission by men who have sex with men (MSM). To provide insight on this rising epidemic, social determinants of HIV infection among MSM were analyzed using a social ecological model, consisting of individual, network, community, and public policy levels. The following determinants were found most relevant to MSM in the Philippines: (1) individual: genital ulcer disease, number of male partners, injection drug use (IDU) and non-IDU substance abuse; (2) network: receptive and unprotected anal sex, and social media usage; (3) community: the lack of access to preventive services, VCT and ART, and stigma; (4) public policy: homophobia, condom availability, and sexual health education. Stigma was found to interact with multiple determinants at every level. Condom use was found to be a key determinant to target for expansion. Using health belief model constructs, barriers to self-efficacious behavior might be identified for future interventions. Lastly, individual, network, and community levels might be the most feasible in HIV prevention for MSM until attitudes toward MSM and condom use change at the societal level

Explaining the continuum of social participation among older adults in Singapore: from 'closed doors' to active ageing in multi-ethnic community settings.

OBJECTIVES: This study aims to identify and explain the continuum in which older people in Singapore participate in community and social life, highlighting the influence of culture and policy context on social participation. METHODS: Using an ethnographic approach in a neighbourhood (n=109), we conducted focus groups with older adults of different ethnicities, exploring experiences of social participation. Next, participants took 50 photographs relating to 'lives of elders', showcasing the socio-ecological context that influenced social participation. Lastly, go-along interviews were conducted in various precincts with community leaders. RESULTS: A continuum of social participation emerged among older adults, ranging from (1) marginalization and exclusion, to (2) 'comfort-zoning' alone (3) seeking consistent social interactions, (4) expansion of social network, and (5) giving back to society. Seeking consistent social interactions was shaped by a preference for cultural grouping and ethnic values, but also a desire for emotional safety. Attitudes about expanding one's social network depended on the psychosocial adjustment of the older person to the prospect of gossip and 'trouble' of managing social relations. Despite the societal desirability of an active ageing lifestyle, cultural scripts emphasizing family meant older adults organized participation in social and community life, around family responsibilities. Institutionalizing family reliance in Singapore's welfare approach penalized lower-income older adults with little family support from accessing subsidies, and left some living on the margins. DISCUSSION: To promote inclusiveness, ageing programs should address preferences for social participation, overcoming barriers at the individual, ethnic culture and policy level

Overlapping Community Detection using Local Seed Expansion

Communities are usually groups of vertices which have higher probability of being connected to each other than to members of other groups. Community detection in complex networks is one of the most popular topics in social network analysis. While in real networks, a person can be overlapped in multiple communities such as family, friends and colleagues, so overlapping community detection attracts   more and more attention.  Detecting communities from the local structural information of a small number of seed nodes is the successful methods for overlapping community detection. In this work, we propose an overlapping community detection algorithm using local seed expansion approach. Our local seed expansion algorithm selects the nodes with the highest degree as seed nodes and then locally expand these seeds with their entire vertex neighborhood into overlapping communities using Personalized PageRank algorithm. We use F1_score( node  level detection )  and NMI( community level detection ) measures to assess the performances of the proposed algorithm by comparing the proposed algorithm’s detected communities with ground_truth communities on many real_world networks. Experimental results show that our algorithm outperforms over other overlapping community detection methods in terms of accuracy and quality of overlapped communities

Partnerships for Change: A Collaboration for Global Wellbeing

Partnerships For change (PFC) consists of a team of social impact strategists and practitioners. The organization is dedicated to promote sustainable development through direct humanitarian action and transforming social and economic conditions of underserved communities around the globe. With the commitment to elevate and empower individuals to reach their ultimate potential, PFC partnered with Jaipur foot, world\u27s largest organization for prosthetic devices, to network Jaipur Foot to innovators and funders. They have also started the building of a health clinic in Johnsonville, Liberia due to inadequate medical support for individuals living in the community. There are several steps in building a community clinic such as creating a community needs assessment, budgets, finding funders, writing grants, etc. I assisted in all of these initial steps in building the clinic in Liberia. I assisted PFC in accelerating their ongoing projects for the Liberia Clinic and Jaipur Foot. This paper summarizes the 300 hours of field work experience at Partnerships for Change detailing my duties to write grants, write strategic plans, find and network with different funders, and create community assessments for the expansion of Jaipur Foot. This piece sheds light on the public health problem of disability in India and how Jaipur Foot aims to decrease the number of disabled through their continuous efforts in the field

DAMNETS: A Deep Autoregressive Model for Generating Markovian Network Time Series

In this work, we introduce DAMNETS, a deep generative model for Markovian network time series. Time series of networks are found in many fields such as trade or payment networks in economics, contact networks in epidemiology or social media posts over time. Generative models of such data are useful for Monte-Carlo estimation and data set expansion, which is of interest for both data privacy and model fitting. Using recent ideas from the Graph Neural Network (GNN) literature, we introduce a novel GNN encoder-decoder structure in which an encoder GNN learns a latent representation of the input graph, and a decoder GNN uses this representation to simulate the network dynamics. We show using synthetic data sets that DAMNETS can replicate features of network topology across time observed in the real world, such as changing community structure and preferential attachment. DAMNETS outperforms competing methods on all of our measures of sample quality over several real and synthetic data sets.Comment: 12 pages, 10 figures, 2 table

An evaluation of in-patient respite care at St. Vincent de Paul Residence

Aim: To identify the multi-dimensional characteristics and need for inter-disciplinary input associated with in-patient respite care. Methods: During the period January-December 2007, 91 in-patient respite users, aged ≥60 years, were assessed on admission for respite care at St. Vincent de Paule Residence. Assessment instruments used included the Barthel Index, the Mini-Mental State Examination, a Caregiver Strain Index, the Functional Oral Intake Scale and the Communicative Effectiveness Index. Findings: Of the study group (n=91), 65% of respite users were found to be suffering from moderate to severe dementia (Mini-Mental State Examination score 0-20). High dependency on the Barthel Index (0-7/20) was found in 52% of cases whilst 45% had low dependency (13-20/20). Carer strain was reported in 60% of care-givers (carers). Interdisciplinary input requirements in the group studied included nursing in 85%, dental (83%), speech language pathology (70%), physiotherapy (39%), occupational therapy (38%), medical (33%) and social worker assistance (24%). Conclusion: Elderly respite users are a mixed group with multiple and diverse needs. In their own homes, these care needs are principally met by informal helpers who are frequently under stress. The expansion of in-patient respite services will reinforce the informal community care network and will help avoid or postpone long-term institutionalisation.peer-reviewedpeer-reviewe

Acceptability of Active Case Finding with a Seed-and-Recruit Model to Improve Tuberculosis Case Detection and Linkage to Treatment in Cambodia: A Qualitative Study

Background With support of the national tuberculosis (TB) program, KHANA (a local non-governmental organization in Cambodia) has implemented an innovative approach using a seed-and-recruit model to actively find TB cases in the community. The model engaged community members including TB survivors as seed and newly diagnosed people with TB as recruiters to recruit presumptive TB cases in their social network in a snowball approach for screening and linkage to treatment. This study aimed to explore the acceptability of the active case finding with the seed-and-recruit model in detecting new TB cases and determine the characteristics of successful seeds. Methods This qualitative study was conducted in four provinces (Banteay Meanchey, Kampong Chhnang, Siem Reap, and Takeo) in Cambodia in 2017. Fifty-six in-depth interviews and ten focus group discussions (with a total of 64 participants) were conducted with selected beneficiaries and key stakeholders at different levels to gain insights into the acceptability, strengths, and challenges in implementing the model and the characteristics of successful seeds. Transcripts were coded and content analyses were performed. Results The seed-and-recruit active case finding model was generally well-received by the study participants. They saw the benefits of engaging TB survivors and utilizing their social network to find new TB cases in the community. The social embeddedness of the model within the local community was one of the major strengths. The success of the model also hinges on the integration with existing health facilities. Having an extensive social network, being motivated, and having good knowledge about TB were important characteristics of successful seeds. Study participants reported challenges in motivating the presumptive TB cases for screening, logistic capacities, and high workload during the implementation. However, there was a general consensus that the model ought to be expanded. Conclusions These findings indicate that the seed-and-recruit model is well-accepted by the beneficiaries and key stakeholders. Further studies are needed to more comprehensively evaluate the impacts and cost-effectiveness of the model for future expansion in Cambodia as well as in other resource-limited settings