Racial Differences in Physical and Mental Health

This article examines the extent to which racial differences in socio-economic status (SES), social class and acute and chronic indicators of perceived discrimination, as well as general measures of stress can account for black-white differences in self-reported measures of physical and mental health. The observed racial differences in health were markedly reduced when adjusted for education and especially income. However, both perceived discrimination and more traditional measures of stress are related to health and play an incremental role in accounting for differences between the races in health status. These findings underscore the need for research efforts to identify the complex ways in which economic and non-economic forms of discrimination relate to each other and combine with socio-economic position and other risk factors and resources to affect health.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/67159/2/10.1177_135910539700200305.pd

The diagnosis of fungal neglected tropical diseases (fungal NTDs) and the role of investigation and laboratory tests: An expert consensus report

The diagnosis of fungal Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTD) is primarily based on initial visual recognition of a suspected case followed by confirmatory laboratory testing, which is often limited to specialized facilities. Although molecular and serodiagnostic tools have advanced, a substantial gap remains between the desirable and the practical in endemic settings. To explore this issue further, we conducted a survey of subject matter experts on the optimal diagnostic methods sufficient to initiate treatment in well-equipped versus basic healthcare settings, as well as optimal sampling methods, for three fungal NTDs: mycetoma, chromoblastomycosis, and sporotrichosis. A survey of 23 centres found consensus on the key role of semi-invasive sampling methods such as biopsy diagnosis as compared with swabs or impression smears, and on the importance of histopathology, direct microscopy, and culture for mycetoma and chromoblastomycosis confirmation in well-equipped laboratories. In basic healthcare settings, direct microscopy combined with clinical signs were reported to be the most useful diagnostic indicators to prompt referral for treatment. The survey identified that the diagnosis of sporotrichosis is the most problematic with poor sensitivity across the most widely available laboratory tests except fungal culture, highlighting the need to improve mycological diagnostic capacity and to develop innovative diagnostic solutions. Fungal microscopy and culture are now recognized as WHO essential diagnostic tests and better training in their application will help improve the situation. For mycetoma and sporotrichosis, in particular, advances in identifying specific marker antigens or genomic sequences may pave the way for new laboratory-based or point-of-care tests, although this is a formidable task given the large number of different organisms that can cause fungal NTDs

RESIDENTIAL DESEGREGATION DYNAMICS IN THE SOUTH AFRICAN CITY OF POLOKWANE (PIETERSBURG)

This paper revisits the city of Pietersburg more than ten years after the repealing of the Group Areas Act in order to determine the extent to which the socio-spatial impress of apartheid segregation has been changed. The socio-spatial changes that have taken place in the city were brought about mainly through residential desegregation. The scrapping of the Group Areas Act in 1991 saw the movement of blacks into the city's former white, Indian and coloured suburbs. Initially the percentage in this regard was low: in 1992 the city's suburbs were one per cent desegregated. Ten years later, the city's desegregation level had increased to 32 per cent. In all neigbourhoods except three, the number of black property-owners had doubled. New Pietersburg remained undeveloped until informal squatters invaded it in the 1990s after the fall of apartheid. This area was earmarked for the development of low-income housing units in the 1997 Land Development Objectives. More than 300 land claims were lodged at the time. Because of the complexity of land claims and urban restructuring, the problem was still unresolved by 2005. Copyright (c) 2006 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG Published by Blackwell Publishing Ltd..