Expenditure analysis and planning in a changed economy: a case study approach of Gweru City Council, Zimbabwe

The purpose of this study is to analyse Gweru City Council`s spending pattern and behaviour and to determine if this spending pattern is directed towards poverty reduction and economic development or not. Furthermore, to fit a log-differenced regression model to a historical financial dataset obtained from Gweru City Council Finance Department for the time period July 2009 to September 2012. Regression techniques were used to determine how Gweru City Council`s total income (dependent variable) is affected by its expenditure (independent variables). Econometric modeling techniques were employed for the evaluation of estimate tests, conducted to determine the reliability of the estimated model. The study concludes by providing some recommendations for possible financial plans which could be adopted by Gweru City Council and other local authorities in Zimbabwe for the well-being of Zimbabweans and economic development

South African Fast Food Outlets Contribution Towards Curbing Obesity: Managements’ Perspective

The aim of this study was to determine what the fast food restaurants in the Gauteng region are doing to combat obesity. Obesity is a global epidemic, with figures rising at an alarming rate every year. The food service industry has contributed significantly to the rise in obesity rates worldwide. Purposive sampling technique was utilised. From the target population selected, one manager per establishment was chosen to participate in the survey (one manager x 5 fast food outlets x 6 branches = 30 managers in total). The study used a quantitative research approach, utilising self-administered surveys which were distributed by the researchers. Summarily, the study observed that there was a statistically significant difference (p<0.05) among the managers regarding knowledge of healthy meals. Managers of two of the fast foods had better knowledge of healthy meals than managers of the other three fast foods. A lot still needs to be done across all sectors of the food industry. The South African government, specifically the Departments of Health and Tourism, should collaborate to develop regulations regarding inclusion of nutritional information on menus. Increasing fast food restaurant employees' awareness of the obesity epidemic can have a long-term impact because they will be able to easily promote healthier eating if they are better informed. The findings revealed that the managers agreed that more regulations were needed to help reduce obesity

Modelling of South African Hypertension: Application of Panel Quantile Regression

Hypertension is one of the crucial risk factors for morbidity and mortality around the world, and South Africa has a significant unmet need for hypertension care. This study aims to establish the potential risk factors of hypertension amongst adults in South Africa attributable to high systolic and diastolic blood pressure over time by fitting panel quantile regression models. Data obtained from the South African National Income Dynamics Study (NIDS) Household Surveys carried out from 2008 to 2018 (Wave 1 to Wave 5) was employed to develop both the fixed effects and random effects panel quantile regression models. Age, BMI, gender (males), race, exercises, cigarette consumption, and employment status were significantly associated with either one of the BP measures across all the upper quantiles or at the 75th quantile only. Suggesting that these risk factors have contributed to the exacerbation of uncontrolled hypertension prevalence over time in South Africa

Predictors of High Blood Pressure in South African Children: Quantile Regression Approach

Objective: To identify predictors of blood pressure (BP) in children and explore the predictors` effects on the conditional quantile functions of systolic blood pressure and diastolic blood pressure.Methods: A secondary data analysis was performed using data from the South African National Income Dynamics Study (2014-2015). From this particular secondary data, data for children aged between 10-17 years were extracted for analysis. The variables used in the study were systolic blood pressure (SBP), diastolic blood pressure (DBP), body mass index (BMI), age, smoking, alcohol consumption, exercises, gender and race. Two parameter estimation methods were used, ordinary least squares (OLS) and quantile regression (QR).Results: BMI had positive statistically significant estimated OLS and conditional quantile functions with both the BP measures except the 95th quantile for SBP. Age had also positive statistically significant estimated OLS and QR coefficients except for the 95th percentile, with both DBP and SBP respectively. Gender was found to be inversely related to both DBP and SBP except the 10th quantile for DBP. Race was partially significant to DBP. Smoking, alcohol consumption and exercises did not present any statistically significant relations with both DBP and SBP for all the estimated OLS and QR coefficients.Conclusion: BMI, age, gender and partially race were found to be predictors of BP in South African children using both OLS and QR techniques. Exercises, smoking and alcohol consumption did not present any statistically significant relations with both DBP and SBP probably because few participants exercise regularly, smoke and drink alcohol to bring out a significant change in both BP measurements

Knowledge, perceptions, beliefs, and opinions of the employees about GBV: a national online study in South Africa

Abstract Background GBV has been global public health, family, and social problem for several decades as it is expensive for society and the economy. The study was conducted to determine the possible differences in knowledge, perceptions, beliefs, and opinions about GBV, as a whole, across gender and employment sectors in South Africa. Methods This was a cross-sectional study using mixed-method design where we used an online survey with two open-ended questions. Perception about GBV Prevention among Employees (GBVPREV) questionnaire consisting of six Sect. (43 questions) was developed and tested. Cronbach’s alpha, Exploratory factor analysis (EFA), including Kaiser-Meyer Olkin Measure of Sampling Adequacy (KMO) and Bartlett’s test of Sphericity, one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) and Tukey HSD were used. Content analysis was used for analysing qualitative information from two open-ended questions. Results Among the 2 270 employees, more than half (68.1%) were females. Males were 677 (29.8%), and members of the LGBTQIAP + community were 32 (1.4%). There were statistically significant differences among males, females, and LGBTQIAP + on employee knowledge of adult experiences, employee knowledge of violence against children, employee perceptions, employee beliefs, and employee opinions and recommendations. The employees believe that all sectors of society should collaborate in addressing GBV in South Africa. They felt that victims should be encouraged to come forward, that society should be less judgemental, that stigma should be addressed and that there should be more empathy for victims. Conclusion Most of the respondents, who were female and had tertiary education, were employed in the private sector, and were very aware of the prevalence of GBV in South Africa, agreed that support for both victims and perpetrators must be provided in private sector organizations. Even though it has been acknowledged for decades that gender inequality and GBV are reciprocal drivers, the persistence of both human rights violations will continue if all stakeholders do not collaborate

Attitudes toward plagiarism : the case of undergraduate health sciences students at the University of Pretoria

The primary aim of the study on which this article is based was to investigate undergraduate health sciences students’ perceptions, attitudes to and awareness of plagiarism at the University of Pretoria in South Africa. The sample comprised 696 students from the School of Medicine and School of Healthcare Sciences in the Faculty of Health Sciences. Data were analysed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 25. Analytical tools included frequencies, custom tables, independent t-tests and one-way analysis of variance. Exploratory factor analysis and reliability analysis were used to assess construct validity and internal consistency of the instrument tool respectively. Findings revealed that overall, the sample group of students seem to be generally aware of the University’s plagiarism policy and what it entails. However, it became evident that there is still a fairly significant percentage of students whose responses suggest a lack of understanding and awareness of plagiarism. Findings further revealed statistically significant differences in attitudes to plagiarism and awareness of it among the six programmes and across the levels of study. The paper advocates that plagiarism policies should be clearly written and communicated to ensure that students have consistent understandings of how plagiarism is defined, its purpose, due process and specific consequences.http://alternation.ukzn.ac.za/Homepage.aspxam2019Internal Medicin

Modelling of South African hypertension : application of panel quantile regression

Hypertension is one of the crucial risk factors for morbidity and mortality around the world, and South Africa has a significant unmet need for hypertension care. This study aims to establish the potential risk factors of hypertension amongst adults in South Africa attributable to high systolic and diastolic blood pressure over time by fitting panel quantile regression models. Data obtained from the South African National Income Dynamics Study (NIDS) Household Surveys carried out from 2008 to 2018 (Wave 1 to Wave 5) was employed to develop both the fixed effects and random effects panel quantile regression models. Age, BMI, gender (males), race, exercises, cigarette consumption, and employment status were significantly associated with either one of the BP measures across all the upper quantiles or at the 75th quantile only. Suggesting that these risk factors have contributed to the exacerbation of uncontrolled hypertension prevalence over time in South Africa

Modelling of South African hypertension : comparative analysis of the classical and Bayesian quantile regression approaches

Hypertension has become a major public health challenge and a crucial area of research due to its high prevalence across the world including the sub-Saharan Africa. No previous study in South Africa has investigated the impact of blood pressure risk factors on different specific conditional quantile functions of systolic and diastolic blood pressure using Bayesian quantile regression. Therefore, this study presents a comparative analysis of the classical and Bayesian inference techniques to quantile regression. Both classical and Bayesian inference techniques were demonstrated on a sample of secondary data obtained from South African National Income Dynamics Study (2017–2018). Age, BMI, gender male, cigarette consumption and exercises presented statistically significant associations with both SBP and DBP across all the upper quantiles [Formula: see text] . The white noise phenomenon was observed on the diagnostic tests of convergence used in the study. Results suggested that the Bayesian approach to quantile regression reveals more precise estimates than the frequentist approach due to narrower width of the 95% credible intervals than the width of the 95% confidence intervals. It is therefore suggested that Bayesian approach to quantile regression modelling to be used to estimate hypertension

Assessment of smallholder farmers’ perception and adaptation response to climate change in the Olifants catchment, South Africa

Climate change is expected to affect the livelihood of rural farmers in South Africa, particularly the smallholder farmers, due to their overwhelming dependence on rain-fed agriculture. This study examines smallholder farmers’ perception of climate change, the adaptation strategies adopted and factors that influence their adaptive decisions. The unit of data collection was household interview and focus group discussion. Climate data for the Olifants catchment (1986–2015) were also collected to validate farmers’ perception of climate change with actual climate trend. Data collected were analysed using descriptive statistics, Mann–Kendall trend, Sen’s slope estimator and multinomial logit regression model. Results revealed that smallholder farmers are aware of climate change (98%), their perception of these changes aligns with actual meteorological data, as the Mann–Kendall test confirms a decreasing inter-annual rainfall trend ( 0.172) and an increasing temperature trend (0.004). These changes in temperature and precipitation have prompted the adoption of various adaptation responses, among which the use of improved seeds, application of chemical fertilizer and changing planting dates were the most commonly practised. The main barriers to the adoption of adaptation strategies were lack of access to credit facility, market, irrigation, information about climate change and lack of extension service. The implication of this study is to provide information to policy-makers on the current adaptation responses adopted by farmers and ways in which their adaptive capacity can be improved in order to ensure food security.The National Research Foundation-TheWorld Academy of Science (NRF-TWAS)https://iwaponline.com/jwccam2022Geography, Geoinformatics and Meteorolog