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Effectiveness of community based health education intervention on the control of human taenia solium taeniasis / cysticercosis in Kongwa and Songwe Districts, Tanzania
No full textThesisTaenia solium taeniasis/cysticercosis are neglected tropical diseases
and infections transmitted between humans and pigs, causing
economic and public health impact in affected communities. The
diseases and infections have received great attention in recent years
and now are included in the global agenda of neglected tropical
diseases. However, little efforts are in place for the control in sub-
Saharan Africa (SSH), a highly endemic region. Tanzania is among
the SSH countries where the diseases and infections are endemic
especially in districts that keep high number of pigs. Control
measures recommended to combat these diseases and infections
include improvements in hygiene, sanitation and pig management,
mass taeniacidal chemotherapy and health education. Health
education is the cornerstone of health promotion and has been
defined as the lifelong process by which individuals acquire
knowledge, attitudes and behaviour that promote health and foster
wise decisions for solving personal, family and community health
problems. However, there are limited studies to evaluate community-
based health education interventions in endemic areas of the country.
The current study on community health education on T. solium
taeniasis / cysticercosis was conducted between July 2019 and
December 2021 in Kongwa and Songwe Districts, Tanzania. The
general aim of this study was to determine the effectiveness of a
developed community based health education intervention to
increase community knowledge, improve preventive measures and
reduce incidences of human T. solium taeniasis/cysticercosis in the
study area. To achieve this, all villages from Kongwa and Songwe
Districts were assessed for their eligibility to participate in the study
targeting on selecting 42 villages and estimated sample size of 872
people. Randomized controlled trial design was used, where villages
were randomly assigned into two groups, 21villages as control group
and other 21 villages as intervention group. The study was conducted
in three key phases, including the baseline phase whereby the
baseline data were assessed, health education intervention phase
whereby the education intervention was performed and the post
intervention phase whereby the education intervention was assessed for its effectiveness. The study recruited the same participants in all
the three phases.
At baseline phase which was conducted between June and
September in 2019, a questionnaire survey was conducted in both
village groups to assess community knowledge and practices
associated with transmission of human T. solium infections. In each
village, 20 to 25 households were randomly selected to participate,
and in each household, one person was randomly selected to
represent the household. The respondent was consented, interviewed
and sampled 5 mls of blood from the cephalic or median cubital vein
(median basilic vein) by a medical laboratory technician for T. solium
cysticercosis detection. The sera were examined for presence of
excretory secretory circulating antigens of the metacestode of T.
solium using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (Ag-ELISA) and
Western blot IgG kit (WB-IgG), which is an immunological method for
detection of exposure to T. solium. During the second phase which
was conducted between July and August 2020, community based
health education intervention trial was implemented using the health
education package. The health education was implemented by first
training livestock/agricultural extension officers, school teachers,
health workers and village leaders to serve as local trainers for
knowledge sustainability purpose. Subsequently, the local trainers
and the researcher trained a total of 440 participants from 21
intervention villages and 432 participants from the 21 control villages
were not trained. The third phase was conducted between September
and December in 2021 a year after intervention, whereby the
questionnaire survey and blood sampling were repeated in selected
study households of the 42 selected villages and was planned to use
the same respondents of phase one. The purpose was to assess the
same factors that were assessed during the baseline phase.
However, only 320 respondents were available in the control villages
and 342 in the intervention villages. A total of 210 participants were
lost during the follow up period that constituted 98 participants from
the intervention villages and 112 participants from control villages.
At baseline, the knowledge of respondents was analysed using the
scoring method whereby a respondent was considered to have high level of knowledge/safety practice or low level of knowledge/safety
practice on a particular variable when his/her total responses scores
were 6-10 points and 0-5 points, respectively. Also, binary logistic
regression model was used to test for associations between
categorical variables. The results indicated that, community level of
knowledge on human T. solium taeniasis/cysticercosis was limited in
the study area, whereby a total of 539 (61.8%) participants had low
knowledge. Regarding preventive practices, it was found that, a total
of 653 (74.9%) participants had low level of practices related to T.
solium taeniasis/ cysticercosis transmission. A total of 572 (65.6%)
participants had low level of knowledge and preventive practices
related to human T. solium taeniasis/cysticercosis in the study area.
However, it was further revealed that participants from Kongwa
District were likely to have higher level of knowledge and preventive
practices than those from Songwe District (OR=2.4). Also,
participants with at least primary level of education were likely to have
higher level of knowledge and preventive practices than those with
informal level of education (OR=3.3). Further descriptive analysis and
regression analysis were used, whereby at baseline a total of 12
(1.4%) individuals tested positive by Ag-ELISA indicating the
presence of circulating antigen of T. solium cysticercosis (active
infection). A total of 21 (2.4%) individuals were tested positive by WB-
IgG assay indicating the presence of circulating IgG antibodies
(exposure to infection). The seropositivity of both tests varied
considerably across demographic, behavioural and clinical factors.
Further analysis found that, participants who were above 45 years of
age were more likely to be infected (OR=6.7) and among this group,
10 (2.8%) and 14 (3.9%) individuals were detected by Ag-ELISA and
WB-IgG assay, respectively.
The effectiveness of the intervention was evaluated by comparing
changes in knowledge, preventive practices related to human T.
solium transmission and cumulative incidence of human T. solium
cysticercosis between intervention and control villages using
Sharpiro-Wilk test, T-test and Wilcoxon test. In addition, the
cumulative incidences of HCC were compared between the
intervention and control groups taking into account that all detected
cases at the baseline were subjected to further clinical management and were not included in the third phase of the study. At baseline, the
study revealed no significant difference in knowledge and practices
mean scores between the control and intervention villages (1.45
±0.94 vs 1.54±1.02, p= 0.24). In addition, no significant difference
was observed in the prevalence of human T. solium cysticercosis
between intervention and the control villages (1.4% vs.1.4%, p =
0.97) by Ag-ELISA. At one year post intervention, the study revealed
a significantly higher knowledge mean scores in the intervention
villages compared to the control villages (2.06 ±1.45 vs 0.94 ±1.18, p
< 0.001). However, there was no significant difference in the mean
practice scores and cumulative incidences of human T. solium
cysticercosis at the intervention compared to the control villages. A
lack of improved preventive practices might be attributed by limited
time to evaluate the effect and the observed insufficient supply of safe
and clean water.
This study reveals that the community based health education
intervention is effective in increasing knowledge on control of human
T. solium infections. However, improvement in preventive practices
and reduction in incidences of human T. solium cysticercosis are a
gradual process, they may require sanitary and hygienic improvement
and more time after the intervention to see the desired effect.
Therefore, the study recommends implementation of this community
based health education intervention to the general public for broader
and permanent effect.Cystinet-SUA project for sponsoring this interdisciplinary research study on poverty-related
and neglected diseases with funding from the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Get PDFWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Get PDFWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
koamabayili/VECTRON-author-checklist: VECTRON author checklist
No full textWe have done our best to complete the author checklist relating to the use of animals in the hut study. Note that the objective for the hut study was to evaluate the IRS treatment applications for residual efficacy against Anopheles mosquitoes, including the local An. coluzzii mosquito population. Cows were only used to attract mosquitoes into the huts and no tests were carried out directly on the cows. The author checklist is intended for use with studies where experiments are carried out on animals, which is why we have had such difficulty in completing this for the hut study, as many of the questions do not relate to how the cows were used
Author-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.
No full textAuthor-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.</p
Author Under Sail The Imagination of Jack London, 1893-1902
No full textIn Author Under Sail, Jay Williams offers the first complete literary biography of Jack London as a professional writer engaged in the labor of writing. It examines the authorial imagination in London's work, the use of imagination in both his fiction and nonfiction, and the ways he defined imagination in the creative process in his business dealings with his publishers, editors, and agents. In this first volume of a two-volume biography, Williams traverses the years 1893 to 1902, from London's "Story of a Typhoon" to The People of the Abyss. The Jack London who emerges in the pages of Author Under Sail is a writer whose partnership with publishers, most notably his productive alliance with George Brett of Macmillan, was one of the most formative in American literary history. London pioneered many author models during the heyday of realism and naturalism, blurring the boundaries of these popular genres by focusing on absorption and theatricality and the representation of the seen and unseen. London created an impassioned, sincere, and extremely personal realism unlike that of other American writers of the time. Author Under Sail is a literary tour de force that reveals the full range of London as writer, creative citizen, and entrepreneur at the same time it sheds light on the maverick side of machine-age literature.Intro -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Dedication -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- 1. Spirit Truth -- 2. From Absorption to Theatricality and Back Again -- 3. "I Will Build a New Present" -- 4. Sons as Authors -- 5. Fathers as Publishers -- 6. The Daughter as Author -- 7. Lovers as Authors -- 8. At Sea with the Family -- 9. Yellow News, Yellow Stories -- 10. The Return Home -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index -- About Jay WilliamsIn Author Under Sail, Jay Williams offers the first complete literary biography of Jack London as a professional writer engaged in the labor of writing. It examines the authorial imagination in London's work, the use of imagination in both his fiction and nonfiction, and the ways he defined imagination in the creative process in his business dealings with his publishers, editors, and agents. In this first volume of a two-volume biography, Williams traverses the years 1893 to 1902, from London's "Story of a Typhoon" to The People of the Abyss. The Jack London who emerges in the pages of Author Under Sail is a writer whose partnership with publishers, most notably his productive alliance with George Brett of Macmillan, was one of the most formative in American literary history. London pioneered many author models during the heyday of realism and naturalism, blurring the boundaries of these popular genres by focusing on absorption and theatricality and the representation of the seen and unseen. London created an impassioned, sincere, and extremely personal realism unlike that of other American writers of the time. Author Under Sail is a literary tour de force that reveals the full range of London as writer, creative citizen, and entrepreneur at the same time it sheds light on the maverick side of machine-age literature.Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Michigan : ProQuest Ebook Central, YYYY. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest Ebook Central affiliated libraries
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