Strengthening collaborative food waste prevention in Peru: towards responsible consumption and production

Inefficient management and handling of organic waste generated by the food service sector is a big global challenge. In addition to the negative environmental impacts of food waste, the effect of the amount of food that is wasted when it is not handled properly is even more alarming. This is particularly when we witness the millions of people who suffer from lack of food and malnutrition. The objective of this research is to examine the situation of organic waste management in food services in the cities of Lima and Tacna in Peru. Using a quantitative methodological approach to waste management, a questionnaire was administered to a sample of 67 restaurants in both cities. The survey results suggest that the restaurants do not carry out the separation or reuse of organic waste. Furthermore, the main methods of disposal include providing surpluses to the staff and sending organic waste to the sanitary landfill and slaughterhouses. There is also a lack of awareness and training about the importance of organic waste management. From the restaurants interviewed, although around 60% claimed to segregate them, only 28% measured organic waste using a manual control and 18% indicated that they weighed the waste for management purposes. As a corrective measure for this deficiency, the production of an awareness video was created to improve decision-making and support change

Strengthening Collaborative Food Waste Prevention in Peru: Towards Responsible Consumption and Production

Inefficient management and handling of organic waste generated by the food service sector is a big global challenge. In addition to the negative environmental impacts of food waste, the effect of the amount of food that is wasted when it is not handled properly is even more alarming. This is particularly when we witness the millions of people who suffer from lack of food and malnutrition. The objective of this research is to examine the situation of organic waste management in food services in the cities of Lima and Tacna in Peru. Using a quantitative methodological approach to waste management, a questionnaire was administered to a sample of 67 restaurants in both cities. The survey results suggest that the restaurants do not carry out the separation or reuse of organic waste. Furthermore, the main methods of disposal include providing surpluses to the staff and sending organic waste to the sanitary landfill and slaughterhouses. There is also a lack of awareness and training about the importance of organic waste management. From the restaurants interviewed, although around 60% claimed to segregate them, only 28% measured organic waste using a manual control and 18% indicated that they weighed the waste for management purposes. As a corrective measure for this deficiency, the production of an awareness video was created to improve decision-making and support change

Air Pollutant Exposure and Stove Use Assessment Methods for the Household Air Pollution Intervention Network (HAPIN) Trial.

BACKGROUND: High quality personal exposure data is fundamental to understanding the health implications of household energy interventions, interpreting analyses across assigned study arms, and characterizing exposure-response relationships for household air pollution. This paper describes the exposure data collection for the Household Air Pollution Intervention Network (HAPIN), a multicountry randomized controlled trial of liquefied petroleum gas stoves and fuel among 3,200 households in India, Rwanda, Guatemala, and Peru. OBJECTIVES: The primary objectives of the exposure assessment are to estimate the exposure contrast achieved following a clean fuel intervention and to provide data for analyses of exposure-response relationships across a range of personal exposures. METHODS: Exposure measurements are being conducted over the 3-y time frame of the field study. We are measuring fine particulate matter [PM < 2.5μm in aerodynamic diameter (PM2.5)] with the Enhanced Children's MicroPEM™ (RTI International), carbon monoxide (CO) with the USB-EL-CO (Lascar Electronics), and black carbon with the OT21 transmissometer (Magee Scientific) in pregnant women, adult women, and children <1 year of age, primarily via multiple 24-h personal assessments (three, six, and three measurements, respectively) over the course of the 18-month follow-up period using lightweight monitors. For children we are using an indirect measurement approach, combining data from area monitors and locator devices worn by the child. For a subsample (up to 10%) of the study population, we are doubling the frequency of measurements in order to estimate the accuracy of subject-specific typical exposure estimates. In addition, we are conducting ambient air monitoring to help characterize potential contributions of PM2.5 exposure from background concentration. Stove use monitors (Geocene) are being used to assess compliance with the intervention, given that stove stacking (use of traditional stoves in addition to the intervention gas stove) may occur. CONCLUSIONS: The tools and approaches being used for HAPIN to estimate personal exposures build on previous efforts and take advantage of new technologies. In addition to providing key personal exposure data for this study, we hope the application and learnings from our exposure assessment will help inform future efforts to characterize exposure to household air pollution and for other contexts. https://doi.org/10.1289/EHP6422

Bangles, Breath, and Machines - Evaluation of Novel Personal Exposure Methods to Measure Household Air Pollution in Puno, Peru

Household air pollution (HAP) adversely affects nearly three billion people worldwide who rely on biomass fuels for cooking and other household energy needs. The incomplete combustion of these types of biofuels leads to emission of a variety of toxic pollutants such as carbon monoxide, fine particulate matter, and nitrogen dioxide among others. While there have been large-scale, global health initiatives to distribute cleaner-burning stoves, the combined uncertainty of whether these cookstoves will reduce HAP exposures to levels beneficial to health, measurement error in exposure estimates, and the unknowns around dose-response estimates of these pollutants to health outcomes makes evaluation and decisions to implement these interventions on a larger scale unclear. Gaps in knowledge remain around characterizing exposure to constituents of household air pollution, namely: 1) Improving personal exposure assessment or exposure classification in challenging field settings of developing countries by using cost-effective, user-friendly, and accurate tools that have high participant acceptability and wearing compliance; 2) Connecting dose-response estimates of air pollution constituents, especially chronic low-dose estimates, to specific health outcomes; and, 3) Using these estimates to evaluate the effectiveness of implementing cookstove interventions in low-resource settings, as well as policy recommendations for designing future clean fuel interventions trials or observational studies. This body of work sought to pilot test the use of three low-cost, easy to use tools in a cookstove intervention study conducted in a low-resource field setting of Puno, Peru. Grameen-Intel’s Carbon Monoxide Exposure Limiter (COEL) Smart Bangle, RTI’s Enhanced Children’s MicroPEM (ECM), Access Sensor Technologies Ultrasonic Personal Air Sampler (UPAS), and the human biomarker exhaled carbon monoxide (eCO) could be strong candidates for future use in estimating personal exposure to two major components of biomass smoke in household air pollution, particulate matter (PM2.5) and carbon monoxide (CO). When co-located and compared against field standard instruments measuring PM2.5 and CO, the ECM, the UPAS, and the COEL Smart Bangle showed promising correlation and agreement results respectively, as well as utility and durability in measuring both high kitchen concentrations and varying, lower personal exposures, in challenging field settings. When evaluated within an ongoing randomized controlled cookstove trial, there were significantly different concentrations of eCO between the control biomass and intervention gas cookstove households at all follow-up visits. In addition to the relative sensitivity of this biomarker to type of cookstove being used in the home, this low-cost, easy to collect marker of exposure shows promise in evaluating chronic exposure to household air pollution. Overall, we recommend the ECM, UPAS, COEL Smart Bangle, and exhaled CO for future use in measuring and improving personal exposure assessment to air pollution in cookstove interventions. However, all four instruments of exposure should be evaluated further for potential utility in assessing chronic exposure to low-dose concentrations of PM2.5 and CO in other global health field settings

A comparison of practices, distributions and determinants of birth attendance in two divisions with highest and lowest skilled delivery attendance in Bangladesh

Abstract Background Delivery by skilled birth attendants (SBAs) is strongly recommended to reduce maternal and neonatal mortality. The percentage of births attended by SBAs is low in Bangladesh (42% in 2014), though this rate varies widely by divisions, with the highest 58% in Khulna and only 27% in Sylhet. Comparing and critically analyzing the practices, distributions and determinants of delivery attendance in two divisions with the highest and lowest SBA attendance could help to understand the differences and to employ the findings of the high-performing division to the low-performing division. Methods The 7th Bangladesh Demographic and Health Survey (BDHS 2014) data were analyzed. After reporting the types of delivery attendants, logistic regression analyses were applied to calculate the odds ratios of determinants of deliveries attended by SBAs. Results SBAs attended 225 (58.6%) and 128 (27.4%) deliveries in Khulna and Sylhet, respectively. Khulna had higher birth attendance by qualified doctors (42.5%, n = 163) than Sylhet (15.8%, n = 74). Sylhet had higher attendance by traditional attendants (60.8%, n = 285) than Khulna (33.7%, n = 129). In both regions, attendance by community skilled birth attendants (CSBAs) was very low (< 1%). Khulna had higher percentages of women with higher education level, husbands’ higher education, antenatal care (ANC) visits by SBAs, and higher wealth quintiles than Sylhet. In multivariable analyses, higher education level (adjusted odds ratio (AOR): 8.4; 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.9–36.7), ANC visits (AOR: 3.6; 95% CI: 2.0–6.5), family planning workers’ visit (AOR: 3.0; 95% CI: 1.6–5.4), and belonging to richer (AOR: 2.6; 95% CI: 1.4–5.1) or richest (AOR: 3.8; 95% CI: 1.9–7.6) household wealth quintiles had significant positive associations with deliveries by SBAs in Sylhet. Similarly, ANC visits (AOR: 2.5; 95% CI: 1.4–4.6) and higher wealth quintile (AOR: 4.7; 95% CI: 1.9–11.5) were positive predictors in Khulna. Conclusions The higher proportion of educated women and their husbands, wealth status and ANC visits were associated with higher SBA utilization in Khulna compared to Sylhet. Improvement of socioeconomic status, increasing birth attendant awareness programs, providing ANC services, and family-planning workers’ visits could increase the proportion of SBA-attended deliveries in Sylhet Division. CSBA program should be re-evaluated for both divisions

Determinants of early neonatal mortality in Afghanistan: an analysis of the Demographic and Health Survey 2015

Abstract Background Neonatal mortality is declining slowly compared to under-five mortality in many developing countries including Afghanistan. About three-fourths of these deaths occur in the early neonatal period (i.e., the first week of life). Although a number of studies investigated determinants of early neonatal mortality in other countries, there is a lack of evidence regarding this in Afghanistan. This study investigated determinants of early neonatal mortality in Afghanistan. Methods Data from the Afghanistan Demographic and Health Survey 2015 (AfDHS 2015) were analyzed. After reporting the weighted frequency distributions of selected factors, a multilevel logistic regression model revealed adjusted associations of factors with early neonatal mortality. Results A total of 19,801 weighted live-births were included in our analysis; 266 (1.4%) of the newborns died in this period. Multivariable analysis found that multiple gestations (adjusted odds ratio (AOR): 9.3; 95% confidence interval (CI): 5.7–15.0), larger (AOR: 2.9; 95% CI: 2.2–3.8) and smaller (AOR: 1.8; 95% CI: 1.2–2.6) than average birth size, maternal age ≤ 18 years (AOR: 1.8; 95% CI: 1.1–3.2) and ≥ 35 years (AOR: 1.7; 95% CI: 1.3–2.3), and birth interval of < 2 years (AOR: 2.6; 95% CI: 1.4–4.9) had higher odds of early neonatal mortality. On the other hand, antenatal care by a skilled provider (AOR: 0.7; 95% CI: 0.5–0.9), facility delivery (AOR: 0.7; 955 CI: 0.5–0.9), paternal higher education level (AOR: 0.7; 95% CI: 0.5–1.0), living in north-western (AOR: 0.3; 95% CI: 0.1–0.6), central-western regions (AOR: 0.5; 95% CI: 0.3–0.9) and in a community with higher maternal education level (AOR: 0.4; 95% CI: 0.2–0.9) had negative association. Conclusions Several individual, maternal and community level factors influence early neonatal deaths in Afghanistan; significance of the elements of multiple levels indicates that neonatal survival programs should follow a multifaceted approach to incorporate these associated factors. Programs should focus on birth interval prolongation with the promotion of family planning services, utilization of antenatal care and institutional delivery services along with management of preterm and sick infants to prevent this large number of deaths in this period

A MALDI-TOF MS database with broad genus coverage for species-level identification of Brucella.

Brucella are highly infectious bacterial pathogens responsible for a severely debilitating zoonosis called brucellosis. Half of the human population worldwide is considered to live at risk of exposure, mostly in the poorest rural areas of the world. Prompt diagnosis of brucellosis is essential to prevent complications and to control epidemiology outbreaks, but identification of Brucella isolates may be hampered by the lack of rapid and cost-effective methods. Nowadays, many clinical microbiology laboratories use Matrix-Assisted Laser Desorption Ionization-Time Of Flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF MS) for routine identification. However, lack of reference spectra in the currently commercialized databases does not allow the identification of Brucella isolates. In this work, we constructed a Brucella MALDI-TOF MS reference database using VITEK MS. We generated 590 spectra from 84 different strains (including rare or atypical isolates) to cover this bacterial genus. We then applied a novel biomathematical approach to discriminate different species. This allowed accurate identification of Brucella isolates at the genus level with no misidentifications, in particular as the closely related and less pathogenic Ochrobactrum genus. The main zoonotic species (B. melitensis, B. abortus and B. suis) could also be identified at the species level with an accuracy of 100%, 92.9% and 100%, respectively. This MALDI-TOF reference database will be the first Brucella database validated for diagnostic and accessible to all VITEK MS users in routine. This will improve the diagnosis and control of brucellosis by allowing a rapid identification of these pathogens