UPTAKE OF TASK SHIFTING AS A COMMUNITY STRATEGY IN KENYA

The objective of the study was to evaluate the uptake of task shifting as a community strategy in Kenya. This study adopted qualitative data collection methods in three different contexts; peri-urban, rural and arid Kenya. The results suggest that voluntary counselling and testing, community health education, hygiene, referrals and family planning services should be shifted to Community Health Workers (CHWs) and they should be trained to diagnose and treat some common childhood ailment. There is evidence that CHWs perform an important role in helping to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) for health, particularly for child survival and treatment of TB and HIV/AIDS. Effective task shifting requires appropriate utilization of primary health care services, effective training and incentives for health workers to provide services

DETERMINANTS DE LA SOUS-ALIMENTATION DES MENAGES EN CÔTE D’IVOIRE : CAS DES REGIONS CENTRE ET CENTRE-EST

Undernutrition is one of the major issues in the development agenda; the increase in food prices in recent years increases the vulnerability of households and climate change has adverse impacts on agricultural production.The objective of this study is to identify the determinants of undernutrition households in the Central and East-Central Côte d'Ivoire, ranked among the most deprived areas. Using data from the Survey of Household Living Standards (ENV 2002), Logit econometric models revealed that among these factors include household size, gender of household head, education level of the head household, the main occupation of the household head, the industry, living environment and the practice of farming. This analysis shows that the undernourished households are characterized in particular by high size, low level of education, the exercise of the profession of craftsman in the informal sector and are mostly headed by women. These determinants are levers that authorities may rely to reduce undernutrition. Therefore, it is desirable for the government to popularize family planning (reduction in household size), raising the level of education of the population at least at the secondary level, to promote the profession of craftsman by the capacity building and stakeholder access to microfinance to combat undernutrition

New genetic loci link adipose and insulin biology to body fat distribution.

Body fat distribution is a heritable trait and a well-established predictor of adverse metabolic outcomes, independent of overall adiposity. To increase our understanding of the genetic basis of body fat distribution and its molecular links to cardiometabolic traits, here we conduct genome-wide association meta-analyses of traits related to waist and hip circumferences in up to 224,459 individuals. We identify 49 loci (33 new) associated with waist-to-hip ratio adjusted for body mass index (BMI), and an additional 19 loci newly associated with related waist and hip circumference measures (P < 5 × 10(-8)). In total, 20 of the 49 waist-to-hip ratio adjusted for BMI loci show significant sexual dimorphism, 19 of which display a stronger effect in women. The identified loci were enriched for genes expressed in adipose tissue and for putative regulatory elements in adipocytes. Pathway analyses implicated adipogenesis, angiogenesis, transcriptional regulation and insulin resistance as processes affecting fat distribution, providing insight into potential pathophysiological mechanisms

Construction and validation of consumer attitudes on biosecurity principles: a methodological perspective

This paper presents a methodological perspective to the construction and validation of consumer attitudes on biosecurity principles. Four biosecurity principles are reviewed with regard to indigenous chicken production and consumption. Using Fishbein Multi-Attribute Model, the four principles are translated into a psychometric construct to measure consumer attitudes. A 74-item 7-point Likert scale is constructed. The study proposes a procedure to validate the construct. This includes conducting a pilot study to gather primary data, summarizing the data, testing inter-item validities, and performing factor analysis to measure construct validity among others. The study sets a methodological perspective that researchers, government agencies, international organizations and donors can use to measure consumer attitudes on biosecurity principles for indigenous chicken

Multinational Channel Strategy and Customer Value in an Emerging Economy

ABSTRAC