Measuring fitness of Kenyan children with polyparasitic infections using the 20-meter shuttle run test as a morbidity metric.

BACKGROUND: To date, there has been no standardized approach to the assessment of aerobic fitness among children who harbor parasites. In quantifying the disability associated with individual or multiple chronic infections, accurate measures of physical fitness are important metrics. This is because exercise intolerance, as seen with anemia and many other chronic disorders, reflects the body's inability to maintain adequate oxygen supply (VO(2) max) to the motor tissues, which is frequently linked to reduced quality-of-life in terms of physical and job performance. The objective of our study was to examine the associations between polyparasitism, anemia, and reduced fitness in a high risk Kenyan population using novel implementation of the 20-meter shuttle run test (20mSRT), a well-standardized, low-technology physical fitness test. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Four villages in coastal Kenya were surveyed during 2009-2010. Children 5-18 years were tested for infection with Schistosoma haematobium (Sh), malaria, filaria, and geohelminth infections by standard methods. After anthropometric and hemoglobin testing, fitness was assessed with the 20 mSRT. The 20 mSRT proved easy to perform, requiring only minimal staff training. Parasitology revealed high prevalence of single and multiple parasitic infections in all villages, with Sh being the most common (25-62%). Anemia prevalence was 45-58%. Using multiply-adjusted linear modeling that accounted for household clustering, decreased aerobic capacity was significantly associated with anemia, stunting, and wasting, with some gender differences. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: The 20 mSRT, which has excellent correlation with VO(2), is a highly feasible fitness test for low-resource settings. Our results indicate impaired fitness is common in areas endemic for parasites, where, at least in part, low fitness scores are likely to result from anemia and stunting associated with chronic infection. The 20 mSRT should be used as a common metric to quantify physical fitness and compare sub-clinical disability across many different disorders and community settings

Influence of Organizational Demographics on the Relationship between Green Marketing Practices and Customer Satisfaction in the Soft Drink Industry in Nairobi Kenya

The objective of this study was to establish the influence of organizational demographics and Customer perception on the relationship between green marketing practices and Customer Satisfaction in the soft drink industry in Kenya. The specific objective was to establish the relationship between green marketing practices and Customer satisfaction in the Soft Drink industry in Nairobi Kenya. This study was anchored on consumer behavior theory and was guided by positivistic philosophy. The study adopted a descriptive cross-sectional research design to establish the influence of organizational demographics and customer perception on the relationship between green marketing practices and customer Satisfaction in the soft drink industry in Kenya. The study targeted a sample of 180 trade customers and 162 soft drink firms but, the researcher managed to successfully collect data from 130 of the trade customers and 102 soft drink firms. Since Cronbach’s Alpha is the most commonly used measure of co-efficient of internal consistency, the study adopted the same. Descriptive statistics (mean scores and measures of dispersion) and inferential statistics (correlation, analysis of variance and regression analysis) was conducted to determine the expected relationships between green marketing practices and customer satisfaction. The change in R2 due to the interaction term was 0.014 (0.396 - 0.382) and the interaction term was statistically significant (p < 0.05) and therefore the study accept hypothesis H2 that organizational demographics had a statistically significant moderating effect on the relationship between green marketing practices and customer satisfaction. Based on the overall study results obtained from the tests of the study hypotheses, it is concluded that organizational demographics had a statistically significant moderating effect on the relationship between green marketing practices and customer satisfaction

Operationalizing “Substantive Faculty Interaction” for online courses: identifying high impact teaching practices

To operationalize the concept of “substantive faculty interaction,” researchers at Regis University used exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis to determine what online teaching practices have the highest impact on students’ perception of faculty-to-student engagement. A three-component model that accounts for 70% of the variance was identified. The components consisted of high-touch, design, and high-tech teaching practices. The high-touch component accounted for the largest percentage of the variance and the six teaching practices that comprise this component are recommended to become requirements for online teachers. They include: (1) Actively engaging in discussion boards (load of .8000), (2) Getting to know faculty (.7851), (3) Present multiple times per week (.7752), (4) Soliciting feedback (.7424) (5) Individual feedback on assignments (.6991) and (6) posting weekly announcements (.6735). Universities now have an operationalized definition of “substantive faculty interaction” that has been statistically validated

Beyond Travel: Regis’ Service Oriented Field Experience (SOFE) Program

This is a program description of the Service Oriented Field Experience (SOFE), which is a unique blended experiential learning capstone course within the Master of Nonprofit Management (MNM) at Regis University. The SOFE course blends aspects of social justice and nonprofit leadership into an eight-week course that focuses on the mission driven nature of the social sector throughout the world. While appropriating theories of experiential learning, the course builds on Jesuit pedagogical principles of experience, reflection, and action, and it includes deliberate exposure of Nonprofit/Nongovernmental (NP/NGO) leaders into contexts other than their own as a model for leadership development and growth. Leaders learn from this process about the complexity of social and other needs and the innovative approaches for solving them. These global connections support possible long-term engagement with these issues beyond the travel experience

Relationship Between Green Marketing Practices and Customer Satisfaction in the Soft Drink Industry in Nairobi Kenya

The broad objective of the study was to establish the influence of green marketing practices and Customer Satisfaction in the soft drink industry in Kenya. The specific objective was to establish the relationship between green marketing practices and Customer satisfaction in the Soft Drink industry in Nairobi Kenya. This study was anchored on consumer behavior theory and was guided by positivistic philosophy. The study adopted a descriptive cross-sectional research design to determine how green marketing practices affect customer satisfaction in soft drink companies in Nairobi County, Kenya. The study targeted a sample of 180 trade customers and 162 soft drink firms but, the researcher managed to successfully collect data from 130 of the trade customers and 102 soft drink firms. Since Cronbach’s Alpha is the most commonly used measure of co-efficient of internal consistency, the study adopted the same. Descriptive statistics (mean scores and measures of dispersion) and inferential statistics (correlation, analysis of variance and regression analysis) was conducted to determine the expected relationships between green marketing practices and customer satisfaction. The study results revealed a statistically significant positive linear relationship between green marketing practices and customer satisfaction (β= .389, p-value = 0.002). The relationship was statistically significant because the p-value is less than the set value of 0.05 (p – value = 0.002). The regression results also showed that green marketing practices had explanatory power on customer satisfaction in the soft drink industry in Nairobi Kenya in that it accounted for 22.3 percent of its variability (R square = 0.223). Based on the overall study results obtained from the tests of the study hypotheses, it is concluded that there was a relationship between green marketing practices and customer satisfaction in the soft drink industry in Nairobi Kenya

Level of risk in substance use among undergraduate students in Kenya: Implications for prevention intervention

Despite the negative effects of substance use on university students, the level of risk of substance use and its implication on prevention interventions in Kenya is yet to be fully explored. The main objective of the study was to determine the level of risk in substance use among students and its implications on prevention interventions. Descriptive cross sectional survey research design was used. A World Health Organization questionnaire - Alcohol, Smoking and Substance Involvement Screening Test (ASSIST) was adapted to measure the level of risk and student awareness of prevention interventions. The questionnaires were distributed to 1,500 participants from 12 universities across Kenya. An in-depth interview was conducted among the university counsellors to find out the efficacy of prevention interventions. Overall, lifetime prevalence for substance use was 48.6% and current prevalence rate was 37.9% among undergraduate students in Kenya. Public universities reported significantly higher prevalence of current use of substances than private universities. Those who had not used substances in the past three months before the study were 993 (69.5%), the low-risk users were 205 (14.3%), moderate risk users were at 187 (13.1%) and 44 (3.1%) of the respondents were high-risk users. Prevention interventions that were found in universities were mostly universal prevention strategies which targeted the entire student population without regard to the level of risk of individual students. The study concludes that substance use is a health problem in Kenyan universities and there is urgent need to develop and implement interventions that target moderate and high risk users

Determinants of Alcohol, Khat, and Bhang Use in Rural Kenya

The study investigated local determinants of substance use in rural Kenya. Over the years, there has been a growing concern over increased use of substances across ages, gender, religious persuasions, and social class in Kenya. It is still unclear what psychosocial individual and/or community factors might be that offer some explanation for the high levels of alcohol and drug use. The study investigated community members’ social status in areas of gender, education, employment, self–esteem, and availability of substances. The sample was comprised of Kenyan rural participants, and included 153 men and 64 women with a mean age of 34.2 years. The participants completed a survey measuring possible psychosocial determinants of alcohol, khat and bhang (i.e., marijuana) use patterns. The sample evidenced high levels of substance use particularly involving the locally available substances (i.e., bottled beer, local brews, chewing khat, smoking bhang). Males in comparison to females were more likely to drink alcohol, chew khat, and smoke bhang. Women compared to men reported higher education and employment status, which were associated with less substance use. Females had higher self-esteem when they did not use bottled beer whereas males had higher self-esteem when they use bottled beer. The implications of these findings are discussed.Keywords: psychosocial determinants, substance use, rural, age, gender, social clas

A Labor Market Approach to the Crisis of Health Care Professionals in Africa

This paper adopts a labor market economics perspective to understanding the crisis of healthcare professionals in Africa. Five challenges resulting from this crisis are identified: a production challenge, an underutilization challenge, a distributional challenge, a performance challenge, and a financing challenge. Differences between the labor market approach and others used in the health field are noted. We conclude that more empirical data, a full labor market analysis, and the use of social benefit-cost criteria are all needed before policy recommendations to address any of these challenges can be confidently offered

Green Marketing: Environmental Concern and Customer Satisfaction

Green marketing has played an important role in satisfying the needs and desires of the customers and keep the company responsible in maintaining long-term social and environmental gains that they could earn through effective green marketing. The purpose of the study is to explore that whether the consumers are aware of green marketing and whether green products are fulfilling their needs apart from benefiting their living environment and to create awareness about green products and green marketing. Quantitative technique has been used in which questionnaire method is adopted. The findings of the study showed that people are less aware about the green product qualities so there is need for better green marketing but at the same time they agreed to the importance of green products and they want to purchase green products at any cost as they are concerned about their environment. Various recommendations have been provided by the researchers that what could be done to create more awareness. The study will be beneficial in creating awareness among people about green marketing. Moreover, the study will contribute to green marketing research. Keywords: Green products, Green Marketing, Environmental friendly, Eco friendly products, Environmental marketing, Environmental safety, Social responsibility