The Effectiveness of Multi-Agency Operation Leadership in Mitigating Insecurity in Lamu County, Kenya

There has been much discussion among various stakeholders on the benefits of multi-agency operations in response to security threats. This discussion is constrained, though, in that it downplays the complexity of multi-agency operations. Despite this, several nations, like Kenya, have used a multi-agency approach to deal with challenges related to national security; nevertheless, there is insufficient empirical evidence about the usefulness of this method in reducing insecurity issues. This study aimed to ascertain how well multi-agency operations leadership mitigated insecurity in Lamu County, Kenya. The collaborative advantage theory served as the basis for the investigation. This study used an ex post facto survey research design methodology. The study was carried out in Lamu County with a particular interest in the county's security personnel: an interview schedule and a questionnaire with structured and open-ended questions served as the data-gathering tools. The essential characteristics of the quantitative data gathered were displayed using descriptive statistics, including frequencies and percentages. Thematic analysis was used to create themes by grouping and open coding. The study discovered that multi-agency collaboration leadership successfully reduced insecurity in Lamu County. The study marked these out to address cases of inter-agency rivalry disputes, agency inferiority and superiority complexes, and the necessity to build a shared working policy on the ranking structure for the concerned agencies. The ongoing multi-agency operation has made Lamu County, in general, safer and more stable. Researchers interested in the leadership efficacy of multi-agency procedures are expected to benefit from the findings of this study, as will policymakers in the security sector

GENDER ROLES AND BOY-CHILD EDUCATIONAL ASPIRATIONS IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN NAKURU COUNTY, KENYA

The present study was an attempt to explore the influence of gender roles on boy-child educational aspirations in secondary school in Nakuru County, Kenya. The question of educational aspirations among Kenyan boys has become the subject of concern. It is against this background that the need for this study was envisaged. The researcher employed a causal comparative (ex-post facto) design in the study. The study involved a sample of 420 Form three boys in secondary schools. Research instruments used in collecting data were questionnaire and interview schedule. A pilot study was carried out to ensure reliability of the instrument. Internal consistency was determined through the use of Cronchbach’s alpha formula and a coefficient of 0.867 was obtained. Expert judgment was employed to establish the validity of the research instrument. The finding from this study revealed that gender roles significantly influenced boys’ educational aspirations. It is anticipated that the study will aid to develop greater insights into the above factor influencing the boy-child educational aspirations in public secondary schools for the purpose of improving the quality of education in Kenya. Knowledge of such factors would be useful to government, parents and teachers since it may guide in formulating strategies that may improve boys’ educational aspirations  Article visualizations

TEACHERS’ GENDER INFLUENCING BOY-CHILD EDUCATIONAL ASPIRATIONS: A STUDY OF SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN NAKURU COUNTY, KENYA

Educational aspiration is one of the crucial determinants of a person’s success in life. It is influenced by a number of factors. The present study was an attempt to explore the influence of teachers’ gender on boy-child educational aspirations in secondary school in Nakuru County, Kenya. The question of educational aspirations among Kenyan boys has become the subject of concern. It is against this background that the need for this study was envisaged. The researcher employed a causal comparative (ex-post facto) design in the study. The study involved a sample of 420 Form three boys in secondary schools. Research instruments used in collecting data were questionnaire and interview schedule. A pilot study was carried out to ensure reliability of the instrument. Internal consistency was determined through the use of Cronchbach’s alpha formula and a coefficient of 0.867 was obtained. Expert judgment was employed to establish the validity of the research instrument. The finding from this study revealed that teachers’ gender significantly influenced boys’ educational aspirations. It is anticipated that the study will aid to develop greater insights into the above factor influencing the boy-child educational aspirations in public secondary schools for the purpose of improving the quality of education in Kenya. Knowledge of such factors would be useful to government, parents and teachers since it may guide in formulating strategies that may improve boys’ educational aspirations.  Article visualizations

Properties of Prosopis juliflora and its potential uses in Asal areas of Kenya

A study was done to determine the potential for processing and using Prosopis juliflora for commercial purpose. The effects of the plant on the soil were evaluated as a measure of determining its influence on the environment. Preliminary analysis of three soils samples per site where showed that the highly infested areas had higher moisture content of 10.5+1.35% and was significantly different at 5% level. The pH value of 8.7+1.03 was slightly lower compared to the low infested areas and was not significantly different at 5% level. However, both soils had almost the same bulk density and ECE of 1.1 g/cm3 and 0.03 dm/S respectively. The soil calcium content of 0.88+0.009 mg/l in the high density area was significant low at 5% level whereas the organic carbon content of 1.13+0.027% was significantly high. No significant difference was observed for the magnesium, sodium, potassium, organic matter and phosphorus content at 5% l. Plant samples of Prosopis juliflora were also tested for their nutritive values, especially the leaves, pods, bark and roots. Preliminary results showed that the leaves contain the highest amount of calcium of 6.38+0.248%. However, the leaves are not consumed green by the animals indicating high toxicity. The pods, bark and roots were also found to contain significant proportions of calcium at 5% level. The different parts of the plant had relatively lower phosphorus content of less than 0.25%. Magnesium was higher in the bark at about 3.5% whereas potassium was higher in the pods at about 2%. Nitrogen was higher in the leaves at about 2.5% indicating the suitability of the plant leaves as a nitrogen fixer in the soil. The tissues also showed very high content of vitamin C especially in the green pods (46.3+5.18 m/100g). Thus the pods, leaves and bark can be used as natural sources of vitamin C. The high ash content of 8.9+1.19% in the bark was significantly different at 5% level when compared to the content of the leaves but not other plant parts. This showed high roughage in the plant parts. The nutritive value of the pods showed their high potential for development of nutritive products including juice, wine, gum, powder, essential oils and beverages. The yield for aloe roots as fermenting agent was about 7.1% on 9th day in Prosopis extract having sugar media, 6.3% for yeast, Prosopis extract and honey on the sixth day and 6.1% for extract, sugar and baobab on the sixth day.Key words: Prosopis juliflora, properties, analysis, potential use

Designing a Food Hygiene Intervention in Low-Income, Peri-Urban Context of Kisumu, Kenya: Application of the Trials of Improved Practices Methodology.

Food contamination during weaning and complementary feeding can result in high diarrheal incidence among infants. Caregiver practices are important determinants of exposure to foodborne pathogens, and can therefore play a role in reduction in infant food contamination. Through a qualitative approach, we used the Trials of Improved Practices methodology to design a food hygiene intervention in a low-income settlement of Kisumu city in Kenya. These settlements in Kisumu city host a large portion of the city's population and are faced with a high diarrheal disease burden. Caregivers were selected if they had a child aged 6-9 months, and together, we codesigned a combination of hardware and messaging components targeting handwashing with soap, hygienic feeding, reheating, and hygienic storage of infant food. Caregivers received up to six engagement visits with the research team. The visits were aimed at improving the designed hardware and messaging components. Results showed that feeding items were easily adopted by caregivers, whereas reheating of food was less observed. Households reportedly improved their food storage and handwashing practices. As a result, the hardware components were further refined and tested among the caregivers. Messaging components spurred the aspirations that caregivers had for their children and acted as reminders of practicing good food hygiene. The outcomes of the codesign process provided valuable insights on the knowledge of caregivers, a delivery approach for implementing the intervention, and further informed a subsequent trial that adopted the designed intervention to target early childhood exposure to enteric pathogens through contaminated food

The Safe Start trial to assess the effect of an infant hygiene intervention on enteric infections and diarrhoea in low-income informal neighbourhoods of Kisumu, Kenya: a study protocol for a cluster randomized controlled trial.

BACKGROUND: Symptomatic and asymptomatic enteric infections in early childhood are associated with negative effects on childhood growth and development, especially in low and middle-income countries, and food may be an important transmission route. Although basic food hygiene practices might reduce exposure to faecal pathogens and resulting infections, there have been few rigorous interventions studies to assess this, and no studies in low income urban settings where risks are plausibly very high. The aim of this study is to evaluate the impact of a novel infant food hygiene intervention on infant enteric infections and diarrhoea in peri-urban settlements of Kisumu, Kenya. METHODS: This is a cluster randomized control trial with 50 clusters, representing the catchment areas of Community Health Volunteers (CHVs), randomly assigned to intervention or control, and a total of 750 infants recruited on a rolling basis at 22 weeks of age and then followed for 15 weeks. The intervention targeted four key caregiver behaviours related to food hygiene: 1) hand washing with soap before infant food preparation and feeding; 2) bringing all infant food to the boil before feeding, including when reheating or reserving; 3) storing all infant food in sealed containers; and, 4) using only specific utensils for infant feeding which are kept separate and clean. RESULTS: The primary outcome of interest is the prevalence of one or more of 23 pre-specified enteric infections, determined using quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction for enteric pathogen gene targets. In addition, infant food samples were collected at 33 weeks, and faecal indicator bacteria (Enterococcus) isolated and enumerated to assess the impact of the intervention on infant food contamination. CONCLUSION: To our knowledge this is the first randomized controlled trial to assess the effect of an infant food hygiene intervention on enteric infections in a high burden, low income urban setting. Our trial responds to growing evidence that food may be a key pathway for early childhood enteric infection and disease and that basic food hygiene behaviours may be able to mitigate these risks. The Safe Start trial seeks to provide new evidence as to whether a locally appropriate infant food hygiene intervention delivered through the local health extension system can improve the health of young children. TRIAL REGISTRATION: The trial was registered at clinicaltrial.gov on March 16th 2018 before enrolment of any participants (https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT03468114)

Improving decision making in schools through teacher participation

The hierarchical structure that places head teachers at the apex of a pyramid of staff is a common feature in secondary schools in Kenya. In this arrangement, school heads are poised to use their superior knowledge and experience to direct and control the working of the entire school. This negatively affects efficiency and productivity of the schools because teachers work at half steam because they are not effectively involved in decision making to make them feel as part of the schools. Owing to the dynamics of professionalism and diversity of ideas in secondary schools occasioned by staffing schools with professionally trained teachers and the need to decentralize decision making to the lower levels, the hierarchical structure in management of schools is challenged. On many occasions head-teachers have been advised to involve teachers in decision making as a way of motivating them and to create a feeling of belonging. This study was designed to investigate the extent to which teachers were involved in decision making in comparison to their desired extent of participation. An ex-post facto study was designed. One hundred and twenty three teachers responded to the participatory decision making questionnaire. Data were analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively. It was found that teachers desired greater involvement in decision making than they were currently involved. It was recommended that school managers should increase the extent to which they involve teachers in decision making to improve on the quality of decisions and boost their morale in their performance of duty

Designing a food hygiene intervention for children 6-9 months in an informal settlement in Kisumu, Kenya

Diarrhoea is a major public health issue in developing countries, especially among children as it contributes to growth faltering and malnutrition. Interventions targeting food hygiene are required to prevent the occurrence of diarrhea through contaminated food. The ‘Safe Start’ is a hygiene intervention study being implemented in informal settlements of Kisumu, and targeting early childhood exposure to enteric pathogens through contaminated food. Before introduction of the intervention, a formative study was conducted to identify target behaviours and design an intervention. This paper reports on the Trial of Improved Practices (TIPS) process, carried out during the formative phase and aimed at designing and testing candidate interventions before introduction on a larger scale. The process targeted four major behaviours, hygienic storage, handwashing with soap, hygienic feeding and reheating, and as a result, an intervention comprising education, environmental modification and motivational messaging was designed

Access to Scientific Publications: The Scientist's Perspective

BACKGROUND: Scientific publishing is undergoing significant changes due to the growth of online publications, increases in the number of open access journals, and policies of funders and universities requiring authors to ensure that their publications become publicly accessible. Most studies of the impact of these changes have focused on the growth of articles available through open access or the number of open-access journals. Here, we investigated access to publications at a number of institutes and universities around the world, focusing on publications in HIV vaccine research--an area of biomedical research with special importance to the developing world. METHODS AND FINDINGS: We selected research papers in HIV vaccine research field, creating: 1) a first set of 50 most recently published papers with keywords "HIV vaccine" and 2) a second set of 200 articles randomly selected from those cited in the first set. Access to the majority (80%) of the recently published articles required subscription, while cited literature was much more accessible (67% freely available online). Subscriptions at a number of institutions around the world were assessed for providing access to subscription-only articles from the two sets. The access levels varied widely, ranging among institutions from 20% to 90%. Through the WHO-supported HINARI program, institutes in low-income countries had access comparable to that of institutes in the North. Finally, we examined the response rates for reprint requests sent to corresponding authors, a method commonly used before internet access became widespread. Contacting corresponding authors with requests for electronic copies of articles by email resulted in a 55-60% success rate, although in some cases it took up to 1.5 months to get a response. CONCLUSIONS: While research articles are increasingly available on the internet in open access format, institutional subscriptions continue to play an important role. However, subscriptions do not provide access to the full range of HIV vaccine research literature. Access to papers through subscriptions is complemented by a variety of other means, including emailing corresponding authors, joint affiliations, use of someone else's login information and posting requests on message boards. This complex picture makes it difficult to assess the real ability of scientists to access literature, but the observed differences in access levels between institutions suggest an unlevel playing field, in which some researchers have to spend more efforts than others to obtain the same information

Bacteroides Microbial Source Tracking Markers Perform Poorly in Predicting Enterobacteriaceae and Enteric Pathogen Contamination of Cow Milk Products and Milk-Containing Infant Food

Consumption of microbiologically contaminated food is one of the leading causes of diarrheal diseases. Understanding the source of enteric pathogens in food is important to guide effective interventions. Enterobacteriaceae bacterial assays typically used to assess food safety do not shed light on the source. Source-specific Bacteroides microbial source tracking (MST) markers have been proposed as alternative indicators for water fecal contamination assessment but have not been evaluated as an alternative fecal indicator in animal-derived foods. This study tested various milk products collected from vendors in urban Kenyan communities and infant foods made with the milk (n = 394 pairs) using conventional culture methods and TaqMan qPCR for enteric pathogens and human and bovine-sourced MST markers. Detection profiles of various enteric pathogens and Bacteroides MST markers in milk products differed from that of milk-containing infant foods. MST markers were more frequently detected in infant food prepared by caregivers, indicating recent contamination events were more likely to occur during food preparation at home. However, Bacteroides MST markers had lower sensitivity in detecting enteric pathogens in food than traditional Enterobacteriaceae indicators. Bacteroides MST markers tested in this study were not associated with the detection of culturable Salmonella enterica and Shigella sonnei in milk products or milk-containing infant food. The findings show that while Bacteroides MST markers could provide valuable information about how foods become contaminated, they may not be suitable for predicting the origin of the enteric pathogen contamination sources