The Doctrine of Relation Back in Montana Water Law

The Doctrine of Relation Back in Montana Water La

High HIV Prevalence Among Men Who have Sex with Men in Soweto, South Africa: Results from the Soweto Men’s Study

The Soweto Men’s Study assessed HIV prevalence and associated risk factors among MSM in Soweto, South Africa. Using respondent driven sampling (RDS) recruitment methods, we recruited 378 MSM (including 15 seeds) over 30 weeks in 2008. All results were adjusted for RDS sampling design. Overall HIV prevalence was estimated at 13.2% (95% confidence interval 12.4–13.9%), with 33.9% among gay-identified men, 6.4% among bisexual-identified men, and 10.1% among straight-identified MSM. In multivariable analysis, HIV infection was associated with being older than 25 (adjusted odds ratio (AOR) 3.8, 95% CI 3.2–4.6), gay self-identification (AOR 2.3, 95% CI 1.8–3.0), monthly income less than ZAR500 (AOR 1.4, 95% CI 1.2–1.7), purchasing alcohol or drugs in exchange for sex with another man (AOR 3.9, 95% CI 3.2–4.7), reporting any URAI (AOR 4.4, 95% CI 3.5–5.7), reporting between six and nine partners in the prior 6 months (AOR 5.7, 95% CI 4.0–8.2), circumcision, (AOR 0.2, 95% CI 0.1–0.2), a regular female partner (AOR 0.2, 95% CI 0.2–0.3), smoking marijuana in the last 6 months (AOR 0.6, 95% CI 0.5–0.8), unprotected vaginal intercourse in the last 6 months (AOR 0.5, 95% CI 0.4–0.6), and STI symptoms in the last year (AOR 0.7, 95% CI 0.5–0.8). The results of the Soweto Men’s Study confirm that MSM are at high risk for HIV infection, with gay men at highest risk. HIV prevention and treatment for MSM are urgently needed

Comparison of contact patterns relevant for transmission of respiratory pathogens in Thailand and the Netherlands using respondent-driven sampling

Understanding infection dynamics of respiratory diseases requires the identification and quantification of behavioural, social and environmental factors that permit the transmission of these infections between humans. Little empirical information is available about contact patterns within real-world social networks, let alone on differences in these contact networks between populations that differ considerably on a socio-cultural level. Here we compared contact network data that were collected in the Netherlands and Thailand using a similar online respondent-driven method. By asking participants to recruit contact persons we studied network links relevant for the transmission of respiratory infections. We studied correlations between recruiter and recruited contacts to investigate mixing patterns in the observed social network components. In both countries, mixing patterns were assortative by demographic variables and random by total numbers of contacts. However, in Thailand participants reported overall more contacts which resulted in higher effective contact rates. Our findings provide new insights on numbers of contacts and mixing patterns in two different populations. These data could be used to improve parameterisation of mathematical models used to design control strategies. Although the spread of infections through populations depends on more factors, found similarities suggest that spread may be similar in the Netherlands and Thailand

Recruitment of heterosexual couples in public health research: a study protocol

BACKGROUND: Public health research involving social or kin groups (such as sexual partners or family members), rather than samples of unrelated individuals, has become more widespread in response to social ecological approaches to disease treatment and prevention. This approach requires the development of innovative sampling, recruitment and screening methodologies tailored to the study of related individuals. METHODS: In this paper, we describe a set of sampling, recruitment and screening protocols developed to enlist urban, drug-using, heterosexual couples into a public health research study. This population is especially hard to reach because they are engaged in illegal and/or stigmatized behaviors. The protocols were designed to integrate adaptive sampling, street- and referral-based recruitment, and screening procedures to verify study eligibility and relationship status. DISCUSSION: Recruitment of heterosexual couples through one partner, preferably the female, can be an effective enlistment technique. Verification of relationship status is an important component of dyadic research. Comparison of parallel questionnaires administered to each member of a dyad can aid in the assessment of relationship status. However, multiple independent sources of information should be used to verify relationship status when available. Adaptive sampling techniques were effective in reaching drug-using heterosexual couples in an urban setting, and the application of these methods to other groups of related individuals in clinical and public health research may prove to be useful. However, care must be taken to consider potential sources of sampling bias when interpreting and generalizing study results

A gender perspective on entrepreneurial leadership:female leaders in Kazakhstan

The paper proposes a conceptual model to understand female entrepreneurial leadership through an exploration of the perceptions and experiences of women entrepreneurs within their leadership roles. The paper addresses an existing knowledge gap on entrepreneurial leadership by bringing together three key constructs of gender, leadership and entrepreneurship. We apply Stewart's model of role demands-constraints-choices (DCC) to women entrepreneurs in Kazakhstan in order to understand their perceptions of the demands, constraints and choices they experience within their leadership roles. The results of in-depth interviews with women entrepreneurs present deeper conceptualization of their leadership enactment as a co-developing, co-constructed relational activity between leaders and others in their wider business environments and context

Engagement with HIV Prevention Treatment and Care among Female Sex Workers in Zimbabwe: a Respondent Driven Sampling Survey.

To determine the HIV prevalence and extent of engagement with HIV prevention and care among a representative sample of Zimbabwean sex workers working in Victoria Falls, Hwange and Mutare

Extensions of respondent-driven sampling: a new approach to the study of injection drug users aged 18–25

Researchers generally use nonprobability methods such as chain-referral sampling to study populations for which no sampling frame exists. Respondent-driven sampling is a new form of chain-referral sampling that was designed to reduce several sources of bias associated with this method, including those from the choice of initial participants, volunteerism, and masking. This study expands this method by introducing "steering incentives," supplemental rewards for referral of members of a specific group, injection drug users (IDUs) aged 18-25. The results are based on an interrupted time series analysis in which 196 IDUs from Meriden, CT, were interviewed before introduction of the steering incentives, and another 190 were interviewed afterwards. The steering incentives increased the percentage of younger IDUs sampled by 70%. We compared recruitment patterns with institutional data and self-reported personal networks to determine representativeness and whether volunteerism or masking were present. The results indicated that steering incentives helped to increase recruitment of younger IDUs, that the sample was representative, and that both volunteerism and masking were modest