Factors affecting health-care seeking behaviour, and assessment of the population's perception of the major health problems in Gauteng province, South Africa 2013

A research report submitted to the Faculty of Health Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Epidemiology. Johannesburg, June 2016Background: More than a billion people, mainly in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), are unable to access needed health care services for a variety of reasons. Possible factors influencing health-care seeking behaviour are socio-demographic and economic factors such as age, sex, ethnicity, religion, education and employment; and income and expenditure levels, and other cultural or political factors. There are limited studies on health-care seeking behaviour especially of vulnerable populations such as immigrants in South Africa. Aim of the study: To assess factors associated with health care seeking behaviour, and to assess the population’s perception of major health problems and its determinants in Gauteng Province, South Africa in 2013. Methods: We conducted secondary data analysis of data from a Quality of Life (QoL) survey carried out by Gauteng City-Region Observatory (GCRO) to determine factors associated with health care seeking behaviour and perception of major health problems among adults living in Gauteng province. We used Coarsened Exact matching (CEM) to improve estimation of causal effects. A multiple logistic regression model was used to identify factors associated with health care seeking behaviour and multinomial logistic regression was employed to determine factors associated with perception of major health problems. Results: From a total of 27 490 participants interviewed, a total of 26 318 (95.7%) participants reported usually utilizing health care services while the remaining 4.3% reported not having sought health care services of any type, when they needed. In addition 141 (0.5%) reported having visited traditional healers when they are ill. Higher odds of reported health care seeking was associated with being white compared to being African (Odds Ratio (OR) =2.28 95% CI: 1.84 - 2.74; p<0.001); with having medical insurance compared to not having any (OR=5.41 95% CI: 4.06 - 7.23; p<0.001). In contrast, lower odds of seeking health care was associated with being an immigrant compared to being a citizen of Republic of South Africa (OR=0.61 95% CI: 0.53 - 0.70; p<0.001) and being employed compared to being unemployed (OR=0.84 95% CI: 0.72 - 0.97; p=0.02). the perception of major health problems was significantly associated with age, sex, population group and educational status. Conclusion: Age and sex of participants, population group, immigration status and presence/absence of health insurance were associated with health care seeking behaviour. There is a need to improve the quality of public health care services and perception towards them as improved IV health care quality increases the choice of health care provider relative to either going to traditional healers or self-treatment. Furthermore, health education and health promotion campaigns should focus on creating continuous awareness especially about chronic diseases and their risk factors.MB201

MODELING AND MANAGEMENT OF WATER QUANTITY AND QUALITY IN COLD-CLIMATE PRAIRIE WATERSHEDS

Saskatchewan’s surface and ground water sources are vital to life in the province, not only as the supply of safe drinking water for the residents, but also as a key driver of economic activity. The Qu'Appelle and Assiniboine River Basins are among the highly valued water resources in the province as they supply water for more than one-third of the population of Saskatchewan and contain a chain of eight lakes that are major recreational and economically valued resources in the region. The health of several watersheds within these highly valued river basins is being degraded by intensive agricultural and other developmental activities. The decision making processes for sustainable water management in these watersheds is stunted by limited observed field data. As a result, for Saskatchewan watersheds in general, and the Qu’Appelle and Assiniboine River Basins in particular, a better understanding is required of the type, extent and sources of pollutant loadings, and effects of potential alternative management practices may have to mitigate water quality problems. Modeling approaches that have the capacity to analyze the quantity and quality of water resources, identify existing and potential watershed stressors, and the relative importance of best management options are therefore needed. With the intention of helping decision makers in the province, this thesis focuses on developing an eco-hydrological model, which is suitable for Canadian prairie watersheds and capable of simulating the long term effects of management practices. Following a review of several models, the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) has been selected for this study. In order achieve the objectives, the SWAT model has been modified to suit site specific characteristics of the Canadian prairies. The first such modification was to incorporate the numerous landscape depressions that vary in storage capacity into SWAT. This was done by representing depression storage heterogeneity using a probability distribution using an algorithm called “Probability Distributed Landscape Depressions (PDLD)”. The modified model, called SWAT-PDLD, was tested over two prairie watersheds: the Assiniboine and Moose Jaw watersheds. An improved simulation for streamflow was achieved for both case study watersheds as compared to the original SWAT lumped storage approach. The other modification to SWAT was the incorporation of seasonally varying soil erodibility due to the cold climate conditions. This was done using a sediment module with a time variant soil erodibility factor that allows the value of soil erodibility to vary between seasons. The modified SWAT-PDLD along with seasonally varying soil erodibility was tested for sediment export simulation for the same two case study watersheds: the Assiniboine and Moose Jaw watersheds. Results show an improved sediment simulation for both case study watersheds when seasonally varying soil erodibility factors are considered as compared to the original SWAT model sediment module, which uses annual values of soil erodibility. The modified model was also used to simulate phosphorous and nitrogen export from the Assiniboine watershed and a satisfactorily model performance was obtained. In addition, the developed model was used to assess the impacts of three different management practices on the export of pollutants for the Assiniboine watershed. The scenarios considered were conservation tillage, a cover crop, and filter strips. Model results show that both the filter strips and cover crops decreased sediment, phosphorous, and nitrogen export, while conservation tillage increased phosphorous export in the study watershed. Finally, the study investigated the different sources of modeling uncertainty for the developed model. Parameter as well as precipitation, observed discharge, and model structure uncertainty of the SWAT-PDLD model was evaluated. Parameter uncertainty was quantified using three different techniques that include GLUE, ParaSol, and SUFI-2. Model structure uncertainty was assessed using a framework that combines the Bayesian Model Averaging (BMA) and Shuffled Complex Evolution (SCE). Results suggest that ignoring either input error or model structure uncertainty will lead to unrealistic model simulations and incorrect uncertainty bounds. The study also shows that prediction uncertainty bounds, posterior parameter distribution, and final parameter values vary between methods

EditorialAvian flu pandemic threat: why is Ethiopia considered at risk

No Abstract.Ethiopian Journal of Health Development Vol. 19(3) 2005: 165-16

Agromorphological Studies for Variability, Heritability and their Associations of Local Wheat Varieties (Triticum Spp.) Grown in South Gondar Zone, Ethiopia

Wheat is the most important cereal crop in Ethiopia ranking third in terms of area after teff and maize and second in terms of production after maize. Six local wheat varieties commonly cultivated in South Gondar, one of the eleven zones found in Amhara region, were collected from the local farmers to study their variability and associations of yield and yield related traits using twelve agro-morphological traits. The studied genotypes were grown in main rain season of 2014/15 at Farta district in a complete randomized block design with three replications. Analysis of variance indicated the presence of highly significant difference among the studied genotypes which revealed the presence of high genetic variability of wheat in the study area. Highest yield was recorded from the local variety Ferno with 1957 kg/ha followed by Chekole (1588.33kg) and Canada Sendie (1580.7kg). Higher value of GCV and PCV were recorded in most of the studied traits indicating selection may be effective from these traits and phenotypic expression would be good indication of the genotypic potential. Broad sense heritability estimates were very high for most traits signifying the possibility of success in selection. Correlation study revealed that number of tillers per plant, number of seeds per plant and harvest index had positive and highly significant correlation with grain yield. The present investigation will guide in planning future breeding strategy with desired traits to improve this crop in the study area. Keywords: Local wheat varieties; agro-morphological traits; genetic variability; Heritability; Correlation

Meiotic behaviour of Eragrostis tef and,i> Eragrostis Pilosa

Tef (Eragrostis tef (Zucc.) Trotter) is major cereal crop cultivated in Ethiopia. It occupies approximately two million hectares of land each year. However, little has been done on meiotic chromosome study of the interspes hybrid. So, studies were conducted to examine meiotic behavior and pollen fertility of the F1-hybrid (E. tef x E. pilosa) and parental lines at Addis Ababa, Ethiopia in 200 7/08. The F1-hybrid plant showed regular meiotic cell division and high level of pollen fertility (94.3%). It also produced better seed and biomass yield and number of tillers than the parental lines which are the manifestation of meiotic stability in the hybrid and the subsequent generations. Pollen fertility test of the parental lines and selected recombinant inbred lines of E. tef and E. pilosa cross was also high (90 - 95%), which are an indication of regular meiotic chromosome division. The resultdemonstrated chromosome stability of the hybrid plant, which is important for widening the genetic pool of tef germplasm through conventional crossing with E. pilosa. The study further strengthen the view that the two species are very closely related

Unraveling the Genetic Basis of Key Agronomic Traits of Wrinkled Vining Pea (Pisum sativum L.) for Sustainable Production

Estimating the allelic variation and exploring the genetic basis of quantitatively inherited complex traits are the two foremost breeding scenarios for sustainable crop production. The current study utilized 188 wrinkled vining pea genotypes comprising historical varieties and breeding lines to evaluate the existing genetic diversity and to detect molecular markers associated with traits relevant to vining pea production, such as wrinkled vining pea yield (YTM100), plant height (PH), earliness (ERL), adult plant resistance to downy mildew (DM), pod length (PDL), numbers of pods per plant (PDP), number of peas per pod (PPD), and percent of small wrinkled vining peas (PSP). Marker-trait associations (MTAs) were conducted using 6902 quality single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) markers generated from the diversity arrays technology sequencing (DArTseq) and Genotyping-by-sequencing (GBS) sequencing methods. The best linear unbiased prediction (BLUP) values were estimated from the two-decadeslong (1999–2020) unbalanced phenotypic data sets recorded from two private breeding programs, the Findus and the Birds eye, now owned by Nomad Foods. Analysis of variance revealed a highly significant variation between genotypes and genotype-byenvironment interactions for the ten traits. The genetic diversity and population structure analyses estimated an intermediate level of genetic variation with two optimal subgroups within the current panel. A total of 48 significant (P < 0.0001) MTAs were identified for eight different traits, including five for wrinkled vining pea yield on chr2LG1, chr4LG4, chr7LG7, and scaffolds (two), and six for adult plant resistance to downy mildew on chr1LG6, chr3LG5 (two), chr6LG2, and chr7LG7 (two). We reported several novel MTAs for different crucial traits with agronomic importance in wrinkled vining pea production for the first time, and these candidate markers could be easily validated and integrated into the active breeding programs for marker-assisted selection

Genetic characterization and genome-wide association mapping for stem rust resistance in spring bread wheat

BACKGROUND: Emerging wheat stem rust races have become a major threat to global wheat production. Finding additional loci responsible for resistance to these races and incorporating them into currently cultivated varieties is the most economic and environmentally sound strategy to combat this problem. Thus, this study was aimed at characterizing the genetic diversity and identifying the genetic loci conferring resistance to the stem rust of wheat. To accomplish this, 245 elite lines introduced from the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) were evaluated under natural stem rust pressure in the field at the Debre Zeit Agricultural Research Center, Ethiopia. The single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) marker data was retrieved from a 15 K SNP wheat array. A mixed linear model was used to investigate the association between SNP markers and the best linear unbiased prediction (BLUP) values of the stem rust coefficient of infection (CI). RESULTS: Phenotypic analysis revealed that 46% of the lines had a coefficient of infection (CI) in a range of 0 to 19. Genome-wide average values of 0.38, 0.20, and 0.71 were recorded for Nei’s gene diversity, polymorphism information content, and major allele frequency, respectively. A total of 46 marker-trait associations (MTAs) encompassed within eleven quantitative trait loci (QTL) were detected on chromosomes 1B, 3A, 3B, 4A, 4B, and 5A for CI. Two major QTLs with –log(10) (p) ≥ 4 (EWYP1B.1 and EWYP1B.2) were discovered on chromosome 1B. CONCLUSIONS: This study identified several novel markers associated with stem rust resistance in wheat with the potential to facilitate durable rust resistance development through marker-assisted selection. It is recommended that the resistant wheat genotypes identified in this study be used in the national wheat breeding programs to improve stem rust resistance. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12863-022-01030-4

EXPLORING THE SOCIO-ECONOMIC DETERMINANTS OF CHILD LABOR EXPLOITATION, GONDAR, NORTH WEST ETHIOPIA

Introduction: The issue of child labor abuse and exploitation becomes a serious problem at local, national and international level and in our context children are engaged in laborious and seriously exploitative working condition due to various socio- economic challenges. Objective: Hence, the main objective of this study was conducted to explore the major socio-economic determinants of child labor exploitation in Gondar town in the case of Arada Area.Methods: in doing this, we have employed mixed research method of survey for quantitative and key informant interview for qualitative research methods. The data was collected from 25 respondents (20 children, 2 residents and 3 non-governmental organizations) which were taken from purposively selected area.Results: The data collected revealed that parental and communal positive attitude towards child labor, low educational status of their family, poverty, early marriage, divorce, lack of community awareness towards child rights and illegitimacy of child labor, death of parents, migration and the presence of abusive working condition at home are the major socio- economic determinants of child labor exploitation in the study area. Conclusion: Child labor exploitation is the result of various socioeconomic situations of children themselves, their families and the surrounding community.Key Words; Child labor Exploitation, Socio-economic determinants and child Â

Haplotype-tagged SNPs improve genomic prediction accuracy for Fusarium head blight resistance and yield-related traits in wheat

Genomic prediction is a powerful tool to enhance genetic gain in plant breeding. However, the method is accompanied by various complications leading to low prediction accuracy. One of the major challenges arises from the complex dimensionality of marker data. To overcome this issue, we applied two pre-selection methods for SNP markers viz. LD-based haplotype-tagging and GWAS-based trait-linked marker identification. Six different models were tested with preselected SNPs to predict the genomic estimated breeding values (GEBVs) of four traits measured in 419 winter wheat genotypes. Ten different sets of haplotype-tagged SNPs were selected by adjusting the level of LD thresholds. In addition, various sets of trait-linked SNPs were identified with different scenarios from the training-test combined and only from the training populations. The BRR and RR-BLUP models developed from haplotype-tagged SNPs had a higher prediction accuracy for FHB and SPW by 0.07 and 0.092, respectively, compared to the corresponding models developed without marker pre-selection. The highest prediction accuracy for SPW and FHB was achieved with tagged SNPs pruned at weak LD thresholds (r

Evaluation of chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) genotypes for tolerance to Frost in controlled environment

The study aimed to evaluate the frost tolerance variability of Ethiopian chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) germplasm under controlled environment using growth chamber. A total of 72 genotypes were screened for frost tolerance using complete randomized design with two replications. The analysis of variance result indicated that there was a significant (P&lt;0.01) difference amongst genotypes for plant height, number of foliage, number of primary branch, growth rate, and fresh biomass weight. Based on plant survival rate (SR), 31 (43.1%) genotypes scored above 0.8 values. Based on Freezing tolerance rate (FTR), 37(51.4%) and 31(43.1%) genotypes were rated at a score of 1 to 3 in freezing test 1 (T1) and freezing test 2 (T2), respectively. There was a strong negative correlation between fresh biomass yields with SR (-0.75** for T1 and -0.71** for T2 at p&lt;0.01), while a strong positive correlation with FTR value (0.74** at p&lt;0.01). Based on the combined result of FTR and SR scores, 26 genotypes were found to be frost-tolerant genotypes at a temperature level as low as -5oC at seedling stage. Based on our findings, Ethiopian chickpea germplasm has a genetic potential for frost-tolerance traits for use in breeding programs