Livelihood coping strategies for refugees - A case of the Great Lakes Community in Nairobi Kenya.

Kenya hosts more than 271,473 of these refugees .18% live in urban areas compared with about 26% in camps while the rest are dispersed in rural areas. Nairobi is home to at least 40,000 refugees.   The objective of the study was to determine factors influencing livelihood coping strategies of refugees in Nairobi. The study was descriptive, cross sectional study that adopted both quantitative and qualitative methods. A total of 240 refugees were interviewed. They were involved in craft making, tailoring, Groceries, farming, commercial sex work and artisanship as forms of IGAs.   (68%) of refugees said that the place of residence influenced their way of life. Refugees with secondary education were more likely to be independent, those with tertiary education were likely to be dependent these was statistically significant (p=0.003).   Refugees are engaged in income activities that are not officially recognized. The contribution of urban refugees to the Kenyan economy could highlight the positive contribution of refugees to the Kenyan economy.

The contributions of community based volunteer workforce towards the millennium development goals in Nyando District, Kenya

This paper presents results of a study on the contribution of CBVs to efforts towards the MDGs in Western Kenya. The study was cross sectional, descriptive and exploratory in design. Objective of the study was to describe the contribution of volunteers in services relevant to the achievement of the MDGs. Services rendered by volunteers were relevant to MDGs 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, and 7. Majority of volunteers spent 6-10 hours in a week offering voluntary services. This is equivalent to $20 per person per month, for 40 volunteers serving 5,000 people. They contribute USD 9,600 per year, which is 4$170,000 the population at recommended $34 per capita per year. Majority of volunteers (70%) had served for more than five years, indicating a reasonable retention rate. Due to the budgetary strains and human resource crisis, volunteerism presents an alternative of providing services Keywords: Volunteers, Contributions, Millennium Development Goals, Communit

Involvement of Hub Nurses in HIV Policy Development: Case Study of Nyanza Province, Kenya

Nurses constitute the bulk of healthcare personnel in most countries playing major responsibility of providing quality care. Few nurses are however involved in health policy development yet they play a critical role in providing care for the individuals infected and affected by HIV/AIDS. This study describes involvement of nurses in HIV policy development in Nyanza Province Kenya. This study adopted a case study design using qualitative methods. Levels of involvement in policy development were identified to be at different levels but still very minimal at the provincial and national levels. Linkages and collaborations were the greatest benefit in policy development. Governments have a key role in governing policy issues. NGOs, learning institutions and communities are key players in health policy. Barrier to participation in policy formulation were identified as competing priorities, inadequate time, and limited knowledge and skills. Nurses play critical role in HIV/AIDS and therefore they should be involved in policy formulation

Economic impact of HIV/AIDS on rural households in Suba Distict, Kenya.

Poor rural communities in sub-Saharan Africa have been affected most by HIV/AIDS pandemic. This paper analyzed the socio-economic impacts of HIV and AIDS on rural households, at different stages of disease progression, to determine economic impact of HIV/AIDS.  The study was quasi-longitudinal assessing the impact of HIV and AIDS on economic status in Suba District. The study population were PLWHA who were registered for care at the local Health Centre. A sample of 200 HIV+ cases was randomly selected from patient support register.The findings showed that there was shortage of labor at household level due to drop out from work, and selling of assets in affected households as the disease progressed to more severe stages. Depletion of assets and savings to cope with increased expenditures in medical costs, food intake requirement as well as funeral costs was high in households with advanced stages of the disease. Key words: HIV, AIDS, stages, progressive, impac

Cost Analysis of Community Health Strategy Implementation: Case Study of Butere District, Kenya

Cost analysis of community health strategy is the Identification of current and anticipated costs in operating a community health unit with an examination of the impact of those costs of setting them up. The purpose of the study was to look at the cost of implementing community health strategy in a rural set up in Kenya. The study was a longitudinal and was carried out in Butere District US$2549.9 was used to set up community health unit and US$7532 was spent in operation costs. The total cost of implementing and running a functional community health unit in Kenya’s rural set up is equivalent to US$10,081.9

Track D Social Science, Human Rights and Political Science

Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/138414/1/jia218442.pd

Improving the Efficiency of Colchicine-Based Chromosomal Doubling of Maize Haploids

Production and use of doubled haploids (DH) is becoming an essential part of maize breeding programs worldwide as DH lines offer several advantages in line development and evaluation. One of the critical steps in maize DH line production is doubling the chromosomes of in vivo-derived haploids so that naturally sterile haploids become reproductively fertile diploids (DH) to produce seed. This step of artificially doubling the chromosomes is labor-intensive and costly; hence, optimizing protocols to improve the doubling success is critical for achieving efficiencies in the DH production pipelines. Immersion of 3–4-day old germinating haploid seedlings in colchicine solution is commonly used for chromosome doubling in large-scale maize DH line production. This manuscript presents a new method of colchicine application to haploid seedlings that showed superior doubling rates compared to other methods like standard seedling immersion, seed immersion, root immersion, and direct application of colchicine solution to the seedlings at V2 stage in the greenhouse trays. The new method involves immersing the crown region of the haploid seedlings along with all the seedling roots at V2 stage in the colchicine solution. Further experiments to optimize this method indicated that increasing colchicine concentration had a very positive effect on overall success rate in chromosomal doubling, while not drastically affecting survival rate. The optimized method showed on average 5.6 times higher overall success rate (OSR) compared to the standard haploid seedling immersion method which was the second-best method in our experiments. This improved method of colchicine application saves resources by reducing the number of haploids to be generated and handled in a maize DH production pipeline

The ASOS Surgical Risk Calculator: development and validation of a tool for identifying African surgical patients at risk of severe postoperative complications

Background: The African Surgical Outcomes Study (ASOS) showed that surgical patients in Africa have a mortality twice the global average. Existing risk assessment tools are not valid for use in this population because the pattern of risk for poor outcomes differs from high-income countries. The objective of this study was to derive and validate a simple, preoperative risk stratification tool to identify African surgical patients at risk for in-hospital postoperative mortality and severe complications. Methods: ASOS was a 7-day prospective cohort study of adult patients undergoing surgery in Africa. The ASOS Surgical Risk Calculator was constructed with a multivariable logistic regression model for the outcome of in-hospital mortality and severe postoperative complications. The following preoperative risk factors were entered into the model; age, sex, smoking status, ASA physical status, preoperative chronic comorbid conditions, indication for surgery, urgency, severity, and type of surgery. Results: The model was derived from 8799 patients from 168 African hospitals. The composite outcome of severe postoperative complications and death occurred in 423/8799 (4.8%) patients. The ASOS Surgical Risk Calculator includes the following risk factors: age, ASA physical status, indication for surgery, urgency, severity, and type of surgery. The model showed good discrimination with an area under the receiver operating characteristic curve of 0.805 and good calibration with c-statistic corrected for optimism of 0.784. Conclusions: This simple preoperative risk calculator could be used to identify high-risk surgical patients in African hospitals and facilitate increased postoperative surveillance. © 2018 British Journal of Anaesthesia. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.Medical Research Council of South Africa gran