Harvesting Hope: Indigenous Undergraduate Narratives to Enhance Opportunities for College Enrollment and Persistence

Harvesting Hope is a scaffolded, multi-disciplinary project that aims to engage Native American undergraduate students in crafting and sharing their stories of Indigeneity, belonging and resilience as they pertain to college persistence

Empowering communities to respond to HIV/AIDS: Ndola Demonstration Project on Maternal and Child Health: Operations research final report

A pre–post intervention study conducted in Zambia by Horizons and local NGOs and governmental organizations demonstrated that HIV voluntary counseling and testing (VCT) and infant feeding counseling (IFC) to mothers attending maternal and child health (MCH) clinics are vital components of any mother-to-child transmission (MTCT) reduction strategy, whether or not antiretrovirals (ARVs) are available. These interventions enable mothers to make informed and healthy decisions. Data from the Ndola Demonstration Project yielded encouraging results from efforts to improve the capacity of mothers to make informed decisions about their own health and the health of their infant. The interventions succeeded in raising awareness about HIV and MTCT and in setting up VCT and IFC services as part of the existing MCH services, as well as providing good referral links in the community. Regardless of the availability of ARVs, counseling interventions remain crucial components for the success of any MTCT reduction program

Evaluation of Stepping Stones as a tool for changing knowledge, attitudes and behaviours associated with gender, relationships and HIV risk in Karnataka, India

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Stepping Stones training aims to help individuals explore sexual relationships and recognize gender inequalities, the structural drivers of the HIV epidemic, in order to understand risk behaviours and to seek solutions to factors that increase HIV vulnerability. Despite earlier studies suggesting the success of Stepping Stones, little data exist to show diffusion to trainees' social networks or the wider community.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>A mixed-methods evaluation of this approach was undertaken using in-depth interviews of trainees and friends, and polling booth surveys in 20 villages where Stepping Stones training took place and in another 20 villages with no Stepping Stones intervention.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The interview respondents and their friends reported significant changes in their relationships after training, and benefit from discussion of gender, sexuality, condom use and HIV vulnerability issues. However, though diffusion of this knowledge at the level of personal contacts was strong, the evaluation revealed that diffusion to the community level was limited.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The qualitative part of this study reflects other studies in different settings, in that SS participants gained immensely from the training. Wider behaviour change is a challenging goal that many programmes fail to attain, with most interventions too limited in scope and intensity to produce larger community effects. This may have contributed to the fact that we observed few differences between interventions and non-intervention villages in this study. However, it is also possible that we had excessive expectations of individual change at the community level, and that it might have been more appropriate to have had broader community level rather than individual behavioural change indicators. We suggest that SS could be enhanced by efforts to better engage existing community opinion leaders, to empower and train participants as community change agents, and to support the development of village-level action plans that combat sexual stereotyping and risky behaviours that lead to unhealthy sexual relationships.</p

Sustained proliferation in cancer: mechanisms and novel therapeutic targets

Proliferation is an important part of cancer development and progression. This is manifest by altered expression and/or activity of cell cycle related proteins. Constitutive activation of many signal transduction pathways also stimulates cell growth. Early steps in tumor development are associated with a fibrogenic response and the development of a hypoxic environment which favors the survival and proliferation of cancer stem cells. Part of the survival strategy of cancer stem cells may manifested by alterations in cell metabolism. Once tumors appear, growth and metastasis may be supported by overproduction of appropriate hormones (in hormonally dependent cancers), by promoting angiogenesis, by undergoing epithelial to mesenchymal transition, by triggering autophagy, and by taking cues from surrounding stromal cells. A number of natural compounds (e.g., curcumin, resveratrol, indole-3-carbinol, brassinin, sulforaphane, epigallocatechin-3-gallate, genistein, ellagitannins, lycopene and quercetin) have been found to inhibit one or more pathways that contribute to proliferation (e.g., hypoxia inducible factor 1, nuclear factor kappa B, phosphoinositide 3 kinase/Akt, insulin-like growth factor receptor 1, Wnt, cell cycle associated proteins, as well as androgen and estrogen receptor signaling). These data, in combination with bioinformatics analyses, will be very important for identifying signaling pathways and molecular targets that may provide early diagnostic markers and/or critical targets for the development of new drugs or drug combinations that block tumor formation and progression

The multiplicity of malaria transmission: a review of entomological inoculation rate measurements and methods across sub-Saharan Africa

Plasmodium falciparum malaria is a serious tropical disease that causes more than one million deaths each year, most of them in Africa. It is transmitted by a range of Anopheles mosquitoes and the risk of disease varies greatly across the continent. The "entomological inoculation rate" is the commonly-used measure of the intensity of malaria transmission, yet the methods used are currently not standardized, nor do they take the ecological, demographic, and socioeconomic differences across populations into account. To better understand the multiplicity of malaria transmission, this study examines the distribution of transmission intensity across sub-Saharan Africa, reviews the range of methods used, and explores ecological parameters in selected locations. It builds on an extensive geo-referenced database and uses geographical information systems to highlight transmission patterns, knowledge gaps, trends and changes in methodologies over time, and key differences between land use, population density, climate, and the main mosquito species. The aim is to improve the methods of measuring malaria transmission, to help develop the way forward so that we can better assess the impact of the large-scale intervention programmes, and rapid demographic and environmental change taking place across Africa

Haiti Cholera and Insecurity Response

Haiti’s political turmoil and insecurity have continued, with over half of Haiti’s population estimated to need some form of humanitarian assistance. The insecurity, which has crippled much of Haiti’s urban regions for months, has now resulted in more than half of Port-au-Prince suffering from limited capacity for transit and movement

Haiti Insecurity and Cholera Outbreak

Port-au-Prince is reeling this week as Haiti’s security situation rapidly deteriorated this past week and violence continues to plague the capital

Hope, Bertha

Interviewee: Bertha Hope Interviewer: Dr. Mark Naison Summarized by Alice Stryker Bertha grew up in Los Angeles California to parents who had a background in music and the music business. Her parents met when her father casted her mother as a dancer for the production “Showboat.” While her older sisters were young, they and her mother traveled around with her father, who was on a concert tour. The family settled in Los Angeles and her father’s connections to the music industry grew. She got the majority of her music training in public schools. She was very talented and learned many instruments. She discusses the presences of sexism in the music world at the time, saying that women would mostly play violins, violas, clarinets, and other “feminine” instruments. Even though she learned to play many instruments, the piano was her favorite. She did not have many role models in the classical music world or the jazz world. Her parents encouraged her dreams to enter show business, but they still stressed traditional academics and the importance of a college degree. She met her current husband, Elmo Holk, in L.A at a Club. She really enjoyed his music and worked up the nerve to talk to him. The two became friends and married in 1960. They moved to New York in 1961. Bertha’s involvement as a pianist in a traveling dance troop is what prompted the move. The moved to Leihman place with Elmo’s West Indian family. She was able to work for a phone company and Elmo worked on a record, which featured a few duets done by the pair. She continued to play and was the pianist for Jimmy Caster. She played with them for quite awhile, until she got involved with drugs. She says that using was common, not only amongst musicians, but in the community in general as well. She lost her children to Elmo and his family and believes she is still trying to recover from this experience. Drugs also dictates their social life. Around this time, she moved to Webster Avenue. At this time, Elmo was dealing to support his own addiction as well as pay for rent. Elmo died in 1967 from a heart attack, not a drug overdose. At this time, she moved to Boston Road in the Bronx and quit drugs cold turkey. She ran a store with her cousin called the African Den. This was during the Black Power movement, and because of the African style clothes and accessories the store carried it was very popular. At this time, she had given up on the piano and music. The store would often help with fundraisers put on by the Black Panthers. After the store closed, she moved to the Lower East Side. During this time, she got involved with teaching and started to play again. During this time, she started fighting to get her children back, which was unsuccessful. Later, she and her daughter wrote a play, as part of the healing process. She believes that moving away from Los Angeles at the time she did lead to her fall into drug use. She is not sure if it was the Bronx, specifically, but knows that the move profoundly affected her