Community Perceptions of Syringe Service Programs in Charleston, West Virginia: A Qualitative Socioecological Perspective

In rural areas of the United States, people who inject drugs (PWID) experience an array of obstacles to accessing adequate healthcare. Locations with high rates of drug use normally offer more healthcare options, including needle exchange programs but, in some communities, there is resistance to providing this kind of care. This increases mortality, morbidity, cost, and adds to the stigma experienced by this vulnerable group. The experiences of people with substance dependency, including PWID, has been widely explored throughout studies that reflect a need for increased support. However, the perspectives of the community, especially in rural areas, though equally important, have been largely ignored, even though they have the potential to reduce obstacles to care, and could unlock resources to reduce disparities in mortality and morbidity. In this basic qualitative study, the perceptions of eight community members currently located in communities lacking syringe services were explored using semistructured interviews to uncover factors that influence community support for PWID and syringe services. The socio-ecological model served as the theoretical framework. Quirkos was used to code the data. All participants stated that drug use is an issue for the community and acknowledged that some form of intervention needs to occur. However, major challenges to gaining community support were identified, for example, fears of a negative effect on property values. Factors that influence community support included the proper location of services and the need for community inclusion in the process of determining access to syringe exchange and other wellness options. As the drug epidemic continues to rise in rural locations, these results could lead to wider acceptance and implementation of syringe exchange programs, and this would represent positive social change

Finishing the euchromatic sequence of the human genome

The sequence of the human genome encodes the genetic instructions for human physiology, as well as rich information about human evolution. In 2001, the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium reported a draft sequence of the euchromatic portion of the human genome. Since then, the international collaboration has worked to convert this draft into a genome sequence with high accuracy and nearly complete coverage. Here, we report the result of this finishing process. The current genome sequence (Build 35) contains 2.85 billion nucleotides interrupted by only 341 gaps. It covers ∼99% of the euchromatic genome and is accurate to an error rate of ∼1 event per 100,000 bases. Many of the remaining euchromatic gaps are associated with segmental duplications and will require focused work with new methods. The near-complete sequence, the first for a vertebrate, greatly improves the precision of biological analyses of the human genome including studies of gene number, birth and death. Notably, the human enome seems to encode only 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes. The genome sequence reported here should serve as a firm foundation for biomedical research in the decades ahead

Ethics Saved or a Penny Earned: An Exploratory Discussion of Legal Advertising Bans

Advertising is a venue used to reach the masses for many products and services. Whet her it\u27s the image of a basketball icon or a familiar cartoon character, everyone is trying to make an impressionable thirty-second niche that will persuade the public to seek their product or service. Yet , when there is a multitude of advertisers in one sector, the advertisements can suddenly change from catchy segue to annoying imagery for the consumer. Within the legal industry, many lawyers try to stand out from the brigade of attorneys by advertising their talent to the public. Unfortunately, it is the spirited few that use theatrical maneuvers that seem to test the ethical sensitivity of society. Advertisements using business cards that are reminiscent of Monopoly\u27s get-out-of-jail-free cards; medical concerns; negative imagery of legal counterparts; and toll-free telephone assistance after an injury have sodden the professional image of the legal profession. This research project provides examples of legal advertising from past to present, and relevant court decisions that both oppose and defend a lawyers\u27 right to market their services to the public sector. Although legal advertising is a national controversy, this paper will direct its focus on how current remedies affect the legal environment in Michigan. Part I of this review researches the landmark case Bates v. State Bar of Arizona, 433 U.S. 350 (1977), and its historical ruling that gave constitutional protection to law firm marketing and advertisements (ABA Journal, 1995). Part II focuses on the general interest in legal advertising and marketing that is prevalent today, including ethical sensitivity and professional image concerns. Part III examines recent court rulings that either defend or oppose current marketing tactics. This section also provides professional commentary on a recent case that affects the current state of legal advertising . Part IV provides a conclusion about the future of legal advertisements with the introduction of advertising bans, and the effects on the legal consumer. Lastly, Part V is a personal conclusion on the research topic

'They just move in with relatives': translocal labour migrants and transient spaces in Naivasha, Kenya

Over the past four decades, the small town of Naivasha in Kenya has attracted tens of thousands of labour migrants. These migrants are looking for employment on one of the many flower farms located on the shores of Lake Naivasha. This article examines how the migrants, who mostly do not settle in Naivasha permanently, carve out space for themselves in the residential areas where they rent housing. These settlements were not planned for by the government or the flower industry, and are commonly interpreted as hopeless 'slums' that are the outcome of sheer neglect. In contrast, this article analyses the settlements as 'transient spaces': spaces that are particularly volatile, and that are shaped by the highly mobile practices of their residents. In dialogue with literature on East African urban and informal space, this article thus draws attention to the - partly translocal - agency of settlement residents in shaping their living environment. The article is based on fieldwork conducted between 2014 and 2016, which included a survey among settlement residents, archival research, and biographical interviews with migrant workers

Autonomous adaptation to global environmental change in peri-urban settlements: Evidence of a growing culture of innovation and revitalisation in Mathare Valley Slums, Nairobi

The growth of peri-urban areas is increasingly recognised as a dominant planning and urban design challenge for the 21st century. In burgeoning poor urban settlements growing on city margins, autonomous adaptation strategies are often the only measures to respond to increasing climatic and compounding stressors. Yet, in both research and practice there remains lack of understanding regarding the dynamics of adaptation and risk reduction at the level of the community. In this paper, we argue urban slums are ideal places to consider adaptation because they offer examples of more extreme social-ecological stress than one finds in more established communities – the kind we can anticipate more broadly in the face of climate change. A framework for identifying local adaptation processes is presented and applied to analyse the case of Mathare Valley Slums in Nairobi, Kenya – a densely populated suburb, where residents are regularly exposed to flooding from heavy rainfall. Findings reveal that slums, often viewed as illegitimate, makeshift, and temporary settlements, are places experienced by many residents as permanent communities characterised by rapid environmental change. Processes of adaptation in Mathare have become institutionalised through time, as a new generation of people imagine themselves staying and (re)organise to achieve a higher level of functioning through various strategies to reduce risk. Innovative and revitalising adaptation occurs as residents shift from employing more generic and expected coping strategies, such as evacuating homes or economic diversification, to creating “gated” communities and savings schemes to maintain and improve the settlement, despite uncertain tenure. Both formal and informal institutions, such as youth groups, play an important role in governing such heterogeneous localities, incrementally upgrading the slum and providing critical public services. Long-term residents' increasing recognition of the permanence of the slum community and its stressful conditions appears to lead to more collective action toward adaptation pathways. However, this is in marked contrast to the dominant non-local perspective of Mathare's status as both impermanent and illegal, which prevails among government officials. As such, strategies are generally not incorporated into planned interventions. While progressive policies designed to reduce risk exist, they remain nascent in their establishment and fail to benefit slumdwellers. The case illustrates the need to incorporate the wealth of knowledge, techniques, and experience extant at the community level in the development of adaptation planning