The Impact of Prenatal Discussion of Breastfeeding by Health Care Providers on Feeding Choice

Breastfeeding initiation rates in the United States remain below the Healthy People 2010 goals. Research indicates patient interaction with health care providers may play an important role in womens ultimate feeding choice. This study sought to examine the impact of provider counseling regarding breastfeeding during the prenatal period on feeding outcome by evaluating: 1) if providers addressed womens concerns regarding breastfeeding; and 2) how providers responded to a womans feeding choice. We also sought to examine whether the type of counseling provided by providers regarding infant feeding is influenced by patient socio-demographics and stated feeding plans. This study is cross-sectional with convenience sampling of all English or Spanish speaking women on the postpartum floor at Yale-New Haven Hospital. A total of 130 women participated. Overall, 95.4% of women identified a concern they had about breastfeeding during the prenatal period, and one quarter of patients had their concerns about breastfeeding addressed. The majority of patients (74.6%) were asked about their feeding plans, and 50.5% were encouraged to breastfeed. Unlike the majority of studies that indicate young, African American, poorly educated, unmarried and low income women are less likely to receive counseling from providers to breastfeed, providers in our study area focused their efforts on this population. In multivariate analysis, neither having concerns addressed nor being encouraged to breastfeed were associated with increased likelihood of breastfeeding. Addressing patients concerns may be most relevant in the small subset of patients who make their feeding choice during pregnancy. Finally, women who were asked about their plans and had their concerns addressed (p=.010) or were encouraged to breastfeed (p=.040) were more likely to make their decision during pregnancy compared to before pregnancy than women whose providers did not discuss these issues. Likewise, mixed feeders were more likely to make their decision regarding infant feeding during rather than before pregnancy. This data suggests providers may be encouraging women to think more thoroughly about the possibility of breastfeeding, thus delaying their decision. In conclusion, many women are not being encouraged to breastfeed or having their concerns about breastfeeding addressed. All women would benefit from prenatal discussion of these topics; however, the effect may be most profound in women who make their decision regarding feeding during pregnancy

Behavioral responses of one western lowland gorilla (Gorilla gorilla gorilla) group at Bai Hokou, Central African Republic, to tourists, researchers and trackers

Gorilla tourism, widely perceived as a lucrative industry, is propelled by strong market demand with programs in five countries and for three of four gorilla subspecies. Human presence may negatively affect wild gorillas, potentially lowering immunity and increasing the likelihood of acquiring humanborne disease. Yet, behavioral impacts of humans on wild gorilla behavior remain largely unexplored, particularly for western lowland gorillas. We evaluate the impact of tourist presence, human observer numbers (tourists, trackers, and researchers), and human observer distance on the behavior of one habituated gorilla group at Bai Hokou, Central African Republic. Behavioral data were collected for more than 12 months from January 2007. Of silverback aggressive events, 39% (N5229) were human directed, but 65% were low-level soft barks. Adult females, and one in particular, were responsible for the highest number of aggressive events toward humans. Humans maintained closer proximity to the silverback when tourists were present, although tourist numbers had no significant impact on overall group activity budgets or rates of human-directed aggression. However, as research team size increased, group feeding rates decreased. Close observer–silverback distance correlated with a decrease in his feeding rates and an increase in human monitoring. He directed less aggression toward observers at distances 410 m, although observers spent 48.5% of time between 6 and 10m of the silverback. We discuss gorilla personality as a factor in human-directed aggression. We explore whether the current 7m distance limit governing gorilla tourism, based on disease transmission risks, is sufficient considering the potential behavioral stressor of close human presence. We recommend increasing minimum observation distance to 410m where possible, decreasing observer group sizes, particularly after a visit consisting of maximum numbers and restricting tourist access to 1 visit/day

If Possible, Incentivize Individuals Not Groups: Evidence from Lab-in-the-Field Experiments on Forest Conservation in Rural Uganda

International audiencePayment for ecosystem services has become one of the most important conservation policy options worldwide. In developing countries, however, payments are often targeted toward communities instead of individuals. Nonetheless, there is little evidence for the effectiveness of different payment schemes in promoting proconservation behavior. We compare three payment schemes (community-based payments [CBP], equality-based individual payments [EBIP], and performance-based individual payments [PBIP]) using dynamic behavioral experiments with 450 participants in 34 Ugandan villages. We further assess the interplay of the payment schemes with stylized local organizations including communication, leadership, and external advice. We find that PBIP lead to better conservation outcomes than EBIP and CBP. Furthermore , PBIP outperform CBP under all tested conditions. Thus, our results provide important insights for the design of future incentive-based conservation interventions, and we underscore how our novel and low-cost approach can be used to increase the effectiveness of conservation policies

Governance and the loss of biodiversity

Most of the world's biodiversity occurs within developing countries that require donor support to build their conservation capacity1. Unfortunately, some of these countries experience high levels of political corruption2, which may limit the success of conservation projects by reducing effective funding levels and distorting priorities3. We investigated whether changes in three well surveyed and widespread components of biodiversity were associated with national governance scores and other socio-economic measures. Here we show that governance scores were correlated with changes in total forest cover, but not with changes in natural forest cover. We found strong associations between governance scores and changes in the numbers of African elephants and black rhinoceroses, and these socio-economic factors explained observed patterns better than any others. Finally, we show that countries rich in species and identified as containing priority areas for conservation have lower governance scores than other nations. These results stress the need for conservationists to develop and implement policies that reduce the effects of political corruption and, in this regard, we question the universal applicability of an influential approach to conservation that seeks to ban international trade in endangered species