Health Implications of Cassava Production and Consumption

The paper examined health issues on production and consumption of cassava. It was revealed that production of cassava is dominated by the use of cassava varieties that contain hydrogen cyanide (HCN) which if consumed without adequate fermentation may be toxic to human. Efforts should be intensified by research institutes to develop more cassava varieties that are low in hydrogen cyanide (HCN) especially in areas where cassava and its products were newly introduced. The use of agrochemicals on cassava farms should be approached with caution. Protective clothing and equipments such as gloves, overall, nose and eyes guards should be provided before applying agrochemicals. Farmers and stakeholders in cassava enterprise should be educated on the need to keep their environment and sources of water free from pathogen and disease causing organisms.Keywords: cassava, health, hydrogen cyanide, agrochemicalsJournal of Agriculture and Social Research (JASR) Vol. 11, No. 1, 201

Understanding perception and adaptation to climate change among cocoa farmers in tropical condition

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Smoking prevalence and attributable disease burden in 195 countries and territories, 1990-2015 : a systematic analysis from the Global Burden of Disease Study 2015

Background The scale-up of tobacco control, especially after the adoption of the Framework Convention for Tobacco Control, is a major public health success story. Nonetheless, smoking remains a leading risk for early death and disability worldwide, and therefore continues to require sustained political commitment. The Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD) offers a robust platform through which global, regional, and national progress toward achieving smoking-related targets can be assessed. Methods We synthesised 2818 data sources with spatiotemporal Gaussian process regression and produced estimates of daily smoking prevalence by sex, age group, and year for 195 countries and territories from 1990 to 2015. We analysed 38 risk-outcome pairs to generate estimates of smoking-attributable mortality and disease burden, as measured by disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs). We then performed a cohort analysis of smoking prevalence by birth-year cohort to better understand temporal age patterns in smoking. We also did a decomposition analysis, in which we parsed out changes in all-cause smoking-attributable DALYs due to changes in population growth, population ageing, smoking prevalence, and risk-deleted DALY rates. Finally, we explored results by level of development using the Socio-demographic Index (SDI). Findings Worldwide, the age-standardised prevalence of daily smoking was 25.0% (95% uncertainty interval [UI] 24.2-25.7) for men and 5.4% (5.1-5.7) for women, representing 28.4% (25.8-31.1) and 34.4% (29.4-38.6) reductions, respectively, since 1990. A greater percentage of countries and territories achieved significant annualised rates of decline in smoking prevalence from 1990 to 2005 than in between 2005 and 2015; however, only four countries had significant annualised increases in smoking prevalence between 2005 and 2015 (Congo [Brazzaville] and Azerbaijan for men and Kuwait and Timor-Leste for women). In 2015, 11.5% of global deaths (6.4 million [95% UI 5.7-7.0 million]) were attributable to smoking worldwide, of which 52.2% took place in four countries (China, India, the USA, and Russia). Smoking was ranked among the five leading risk factors by DALYs in 109 countries and territories in 2015, rising from 88 geographies in 1990. In terms of birth cohorts, male smoking prevalence followed similar age patterns across levels of SDI, whereas much more heterogeneity was found in age patterns for female smokers by level of development. While smoking prevalence and risk-deleted DALY rates mostly decreased by sex and SDI quintile, population growth, population ageing, or a combination of both, drove rises in overall smoking-attributable DALYs in low-SDI to middle-SDI geographies between 2005 and 2015. Interpretation The pace of progress in reducing smoking prevalence has been heterogeneous across geographies, development status, and sex, and as highlighted by more recent trends, maintaining past rates of decline should not be taken for granted, especially in women and in low-SDI to middle-SDI countries. Beyond the effect of the tobacco industry and societal mores, a crucial challenge facing tobacco control initiatives is that demographic forces are poised to heighten smoking's global toll, unless progress in preventing initiation and promoting cessation can be substantially accelerated. Greater success in tobacco control is possible but requires effective, comprehensive, and adequately implemented and enforced policies, which might in turn require global and national levels of political commitment beyond what has been achieved during the past 25 years.Peer reviewe

Global, regional, and national levels of maternal mortality, 1990-2015 : a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2015

Background In transitioning from the Millennium Development Goal to the Sustainable Development Goal era, it is imperative to comprehensively assess progress toward reducing maternal mortality to identify areas of success, remaining challenges, and frame policy discussions. We aimed to quantify maternal mortality throughout the world by underlying cause and age from 1990 to 2015. Methods We estimated maternal mortality at the global, regional, and national levels from 1990 to 2015 for ages 10-54 years by systematically compiling and processing all available data sources from 186 of 195 countries and territories, 11 of which were analysed at the subnational level. We quantified eight underlying causes of maternal death and four timing categories, improving estimation methods since GBD 2013 for adult all-cause mortality, HIV-related maternal mortality, and late maternal death. Secondary analyses then allowed systematic examination of drivers of trends, including the relation between maternal mortality and coverage of specific reproductive health-care services as well as assessment of observed versus expected maternal mortality as a function of Socio-demographic Index (SDI), a summary indicator derived from measures of income per capita, educational attainment, and fertility. Findings Only ten countries achieved MDG 5, but 122 of 195 countries have already met SDG 3.1. Geographical disparities widened between 1990 and 2015 and, in 2015, 24 countries still had a maternal mortality ratio greater than 400. The proportion of all maternal deaths occurring in the bottom two SDI quintiles, where haemorrhage is the dominant cause of maternal death, increased from roughly 68% in 1990 to more than 80% in 2015. The middle SDI quintile improved the most from 1990 to 2015, but also has the most complicated causal profile. Maternal mortality in the highest SDI quintile is mostly due to other direct maternal disorders, indirect maternal disorders, and abortion, ectopic pregnancy, and/or miscarriage. Historical patterns suggest achievement of SDG 3.1 will require 91% coverage of one antenatal care visit, 78% of four antenatal care visits, 81% of in-facility delivery, and 87% of skilled birth attendance. Interpretation Several challenges to improving reproductive health lie ahead in the SDG era. Countries should establish or renew systems for collection and timely dissemination of health data; expand coverage and improve quality of family planning services, including access to contraception and safe abortion to address high adolescent fertility; invest in improving health system capacity, including coverage of routine reproductive health care and of more advanced obstetric care-including EmOC; adapt health systems and data collection systems to monitor and reverse the increase in indirect, other direct, and late maternal deaths, especially in high SDI locations; and examine their own performance with respect to their SDI level, using that information to formulate strategies to improve performance and ensure optimum reproductive health of their population.Peer reviewe

Alcohol use and burden for 195 countries and territories, 1990-2016: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2016

BACKGROUND: Alcohol use is a leading risk factor for death and disability, but its overall association with health remains complex given the possible protective effects of moderate alcohol consumption on some conditions. With our comprehensive approach to health accounting within the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study 2016, we generated improved estimates of alcohol use and alcohol-attributable deaths and disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs) for 195 locations from 1990 to 2016, for both sexes and for 5-year age groups between the ages of 15 years and 95 years and older. METHODS: Using 694 data sources of individual and population-level alcohol consumption, along with 592 prospective and retrospective studies on the risk of alcohol use, we produced estimates of the prevalence of current drinking, abstention, the distribution of alcohol consumption among current drinkers in standard drinks daily (defined as 10 g of pure ethyl alcohol), and alcohol-attributable deaths and DALYs. We made several methodological improvements compared with previous estimates: first, we adjusted alcohol sales estimates to take into account tourist and unrecorded consumption; second, we did a new meta-analysis of relative risks for 23 health outcomes associated with alcohol use; and third, we developed a new method to quantify the level of alcohol consumption that minimises the overall risk to individual health. FINDINGS: Globally, alcohol use was the seventh leading risk factor for both deaths and DALYs in 2016, accounting for 2·2% (95% uncertainty interval [UI] 1·5–3·0) of age-standardised female deaths and 6·8% (5·8–8·0) of age-standardised male deaths. Among the population aged 15–49 years, alcohol use was the leading risk factor globally in 2016, with 3·8% (95% UI 3·2–4·3) of female deaths and 12·2% (10·8–13·6) of male deaths attributable to alcohol use. For the population aged 15–49 years, female attributable DALYs were 2·3% (95% UI 2·0–2·6) and male attributable DALYs were 8·9% (7·8–9·9). The three leading causes of attributable deaths in this age group were tuberculosis (1·4% [95% UI 1·0–1·7] of total deaths), road injuries (1·2% [0·7–1·9]), and self-harm (1·1% [0·6–1·5]). For populations aged 50 years and older, cancers accounted for a large proportion of total alcohol-attributable deaths in 2016, constituting 27·1% (95% UI 21·2–33·3) of total alcohol-attributable female deaths and 18·9% (15·3–22·6) of male deaths. The level of alcohol consumption that minimised harm across health outcomes was zero (95% UI 0·0–0·8) standard drinks per week. INTERPRETATION: Alcohol use is a leading risk factor for global disease burden and causes substantial health loss. We found that the risk of all-cause mortality, and of cancers specifically, rises with increasing levels of consumption, and the level of consumption that minimises health loss is zero. These results suggest that alcohol control policies might need to be revised worldwide, refocusing on efforts to lower overall population-level consumption. FUNDING: Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

Application of Health Belief Model for Promoting Behaviour Change among Nigerian Single Youths

The study analyzes the factors influencing conduct of HIV test and risky behavour change using the health belief model. The data were obtained from the Nigeria’s 2004 NLSS data and analyzed with descriptive statistics and Probit regression. Results show that 87.79% of the single youths were aware of HIV/AIDS, 3.34% conducted HIV test and 71.73% desisted from risky behaviour by having sex with one partner (24.35%), not starting sex (16.90%) and using condom (14.29%). Also, probability of conducting HIV test and changing risky behaviours significantly increases (p<0.10) with age, access to radio, television and per capita expenditure, while it significantly decreases with no formal education. Residence in urban area significantly increases probability of conducting HIV test, but significantly reduces probability of changing risky behaviours. The study recommends integration of health studies into Nigerian elementary school curriculums, provision of adequate facilities for free HIV test in rural areas, among others (Afr. J. Reprod. Health 2010; 14[2]:63-75).KEYWORDS: Behaviour change, health belief model, HIV test, youth, Nigeria

Assessment of sustainable land management and food security among climatic shocks’ exposed to African farmers

Climate change is one of the major challenges of agricultural production in many developing countries. It complements some other development challenges like civil unrests, environmental degradation and HIV&AIDS as one of the major obstacles to Africa’s socioeconomic development. African policy makers have now realized the enormity of economic consequences of climate change, and are coming up with mechanisms for reducing vulnerability through adaptive mechanisms. These would reduce the problem of food insecurity since agriculture is the dominant sector in many African countries. Similarly, these efforts are justifiable given that high proportion of the labor force is found in agriculture and other related activities. This paper analysed the impact of sustainable land use on monthly food shortages among farmers in selected African countries. Data used for this study were collected by the CGIAR’s Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) as baseline survey between late 2010 to early 2011. Five sites were randomly selected from East Africa (Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda), while in West Africa, five sites were each selected from Burkina Faso, Ghana, Mali, Niger and Senegal. A total of 1398 farm households were sampled from the two sub-regions using structured questionnaire. Data were analysed with descriptive statistics and Negative Binomial (NB) regression model. The results showed that majority of the farmers from Senegal had no formal education, while average numbers of months when farm households were unable to meet households’ food needs were highest in Ethiopia (6.55), Tanzania (5.36) and Ghana (4.44). The results from Negative binomial regression showed that monthly food shortages significantly increased (p<0.05) with exposure to climatic shocks, introduction of new crops, late planting, use of mulching and stopping irrigation. It however reduced significantly (p<0.05) with food cropland owned, vegetable cultivation, fish production, remittance income, access to formal and informal loans, income from renting land, stop planting a variety, improved irrigation and use of integrated crop management. It was concluded that the farmers were adjusting their farming systems in response to climate change and efforts at promoting sustainable farming system will enhance their adaptive capacity and food security given the current climatic changes

Assessment of farm households’ vulnerability to climate change in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria

Climate change is currently an emerging problem in Nigeria. The Niger Delta region presents some vulnerability due to activities of some oil companies. This study provides an assessment of farm households’ perception of climate change and vulnerability in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria. The data were obtained form 381 households that were randomly selected from 3 States in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria. The descriptive and Probit regression analytical methods were used. Results showed that only 20.21 percent of the farmers claimed to be adversely affected by climate change in the form of increased temperature, increased rainfall, delayed rainfall and deforestation. Farming households considered themselves vulnerable to climate change due to the nature of their primary occupation and lack of the required capital and skill for income diversification. In order to cope, majority of the respondents have resorted into weather monitoring, crop rotation and mixed farming. Also, results show that vulnerability tends to increase among those farmers that have land kept under fallowing, more livestock land, land problem, land conflict and recently sold land. It was recommended that efforts to sensitize the farmers on climate change and training on appropriate means of weather monitoring are required to reduce the negative effects of climate change,among others.Keywords: Climate-change -vulnerability - perception, Niger Delt