Educational Level, Sex and Church Affiliation on Health Seeking Behaviour among Parishioners in Makurdi Metropolis of Benue State

The study investigated the impact of educational level, sex and church affiliation on health seeking behavior among parishioners in Makurdi metropolis.448 participants were randomly selected to participate in the study. A self constructed and validated health seeking behaviorscale was used to collect data. The reliability coefficient of the instrument was determined using Cronbach Alpha. It has a coefficient of .778.There hypotheses were tested and the finding were as follows: Seeking behavior, F (1,440)= 103.82, P<.001. Specifically, participants with high educational level reported higher score on health seeking behavior scale. Also sex was statically significant on health seeking behaviour, F (1,440) = 45.76, P<.001. Specifically Catholics engage more in health seeking behavior than non-Catholics. The study suggested that educational policy should be adequately implemented in order to benefit all, while government should also adopt a gendered approach to men’s health policy and church leaders and health promoters should work hand in hand and possibly use church platform to advocate health policy Keywords: Educational level, sex, church affiliation, health seeking, behaviour

Improving food safety culture in Nigeria:A review of practical issues

As a developing nation and the most populous nation in Africa, Nigeria has enormous challenges connected with food safety culture. To produce and provide safe, secure and nutritious food, consumers and food businesses must abide by a set of shared values known as food safety culture. In Nigeria, food safety culture is a complex subject due to Nigeria’s heterogeneous and diverse nature, as demonstrated by its over 250 ethnic groups. As Nigeria becomes more urbanized and incomes continue to fluctuate at robust rates, few Nigerians are conscious of food safety issues. In addition, oversight from government regulators around food safety require improvement. Public engagement in food safety issues has not witnessed a promising trajectory in recent years. In this article, we provide a review of the food safety culture in Nigeria and its role and influence on various cases of food safety issues in Nigeria. Of interest to this paper are studies exploring consumer and food handler perceptions and behavior regarding food safety. In addition, keen attention is devoted to areas that are in need of additional research to help address practical and on-the-ground challenges associated with Nigeria’s food safety practices. This article suggests that improving food safety culture in Nigeria requires both applying the best management and communication approaches in different regions and understanding the local food safety practices

Space Qualified 200-Watt Q-Band Linearized Traveling-Wave Tube Amplifier

L3 Technologies Electron Devices Division, (L3 EDD) and L3 Technologies Narda Microwave West (L3 NMW), are completing space-flight qualification for a 200-watt Q-band linearized channelized traveling-wave tube amplifier (LCTWTA) capable of over 5 GHz instantaneous bandwidth in a conduction-cooled package. This paper will discuss the LCTWTA performance, manufacturing and flight qualification test results

Clinical characteristics and treatment patterns of pregnant women with hypertension in primary care in the Federal Capital Territory of Nigeria: Cross-sectional results from the Hypertension Treatment in Nigeria Program

BACKGROUND: Hypertensive disorders of pregnancy, including hypertension, are a leading cause of maternal mortality in Nigeria. However, there is a paucity of data on pregnant women with hypertension who receive care in primary health care facilities. This study presents the results from a cross-sectional analysis of pregnant women enrolled in the Hypertension Treatment in Nigeria Program which is aimed at integrating and strengthening hypertension care in primary health care centres. METHODS: A descriptive analysis of the baseline results from the Hypertension Treatment in Nigeria Program was performed. Baseline blood pressures, treatment and control rates of pregnant women were analysed and compared to other adult women of reproductive age. A complete case analysis was performed, and a two-sided p value \u3c 0.05 was considered statistically significant. RESULTS: Between January 2020 to October 2022, 5972 women of reproductive age were enrolled in the 60 primary healthcare centres participating in the Hypertension Treatment in Nigeria Program and 112 (2%) were pregnant. Overall mean age (SD) was 39.6 years (6.3). Co-morbidities were rare in both groups, and blood pressures were similar amongst pregnant and non-pregnant women (overall mean (SD) first systolic and diastolic blood pressures were 157.4 (20.6)/100.7 (13.6) mm Hg and overall mean (SD) second systolic and diastolic blood pressures were 151.7 (20.1)/98.4 (13.5) mm Hg). However, compared to non-pregnant women, pregnant women had a higher rate of newly diagnosed hypertension (65.2% versus 54.4% p = 0.02) and lower baseline walk-in treatment (32.1% versus 42.1%, p = 0.03). The control rate was numerically lower among pregnant patients (6.3% versus 10.2%, p = 0.17), but was not statistically significant. Some pregnant patients (8.3%) were on medications contraindicated in pregnancy, and none of the pregnant women were on aspirin for primary prevention of preeclampsia. CONCLUSIONS: These findings indicate significant gaps in care and important areas for future studies to improve the quality of care and outcomes for pregnant women with hypertension in Nigeria, a country with the highest burden of maternal mortality globally

Brief digital interventions to support the psychological well-being of NHS staff during the COVID-19 pandemic: 3-arm pilot randomized controlled trial

Background: Health and social care staff are at high risk of experiencing adverse mental health outcomes during the COVID-19 pandemic. Hence, there is a need to prioritize and identify ways to effectively support their psychological wellbeing. Compared to traditional psychological interventions, digital psychological interventions are cost effective treatment options that allow for large-scale dissemination and transcend social distancing, overcome rurality, and minimize clinician time. Objective: This study reports outcomes of a CONSORT-compliant parallel-arm pilot randomised controlled trial (RCT) examining the potential usefulness of an existing and a novel digital psychological intervention aimed at supporting psychological health among NHS staff working through the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: NHS Highland (NHSH) frontline staff volunteers (N = 169) were randomly assigned to the newly developed NHSH Staff Wellbeing Project (NHSWBP), an established digital intervention (My Possible Self; MPS), or to a waitlist (WL) condition for four weeks. Attempts were made to blind participants to which digital intervention they were allocated. The interventions were fully automated, without any human input or guidance. We measured five self-reported psychological outcomes over three time points: before (baseline), middle (after 2 weeks) and after treatment (4 weeks). The primary outcomes were anxiety (GAD-7), depression (PHQ-9) and mental well-being (Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-being Scale). The secondary outcomes included mental toughness (Mental Toughness Index) and gratitude (the Gratitude Questionnaire). Results: Retention rates at middle and post-intervention were 77% (n = 130) and 63.3% (n = 107), respectively. At post-intervention, small differences were noted between the WL condition and the two treatment conditions on anxiety (vs. MPS: d = .07, 95% CI: -.20, .33; vs. NHSWBP: d = .06, 95% CI: -.19, .31), depression (vs. MPS: d = .37, 95% CI: .07, .66; vs. NHSWBP: d = .18, 95% CI: -.11, .46), and mental well-being (vs. MPS: d = -.04, 95% CI: -.62, -.08; vs. NHSWBP: d = -.15, 95% CI: -.41, .10). A similar pattern of between-group differences was found for the secondary outcomes. The NHSWBP group generally had larger within group effects than the other groups and displayed a greater rate of change compared to the other conditions on all outcomes, except for gratitude, where the rate of change was greatest for the MPS group. Conclusions: Our analyses provided encouraging results for the use of brief digital psychological interventions in improving psychological well-being among health and social care workers. Future multi-site RCTs, with power to reliably detect differences, are needed to determine the efficacy of contextualised interventions relative to existing digital treatments. Clinical Trial: Trial registration: ISRCTN1810712

A new integrated assessment framework for climate-smart nutrition security in sub-Saharan Africa : the integrated Future Estimator for Emissions and Diets (iFEED)

Funding statement This work was supported by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council through UK Research and Innovation as part of the Global Challenges Research Fund, AFRICAP programme, grant number BB/P027784/1.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Bridging the gap in African biodiversity genomics and bioinformatics:Open Institute of the African BioGenome Project:

The Open Institute of the African BioGenome Project empowers African scientists and institutions with the skill sets, capacity and infrastructure to advance scientific knowledge and innovation and drive economic growth