American Journal of Public Health Research

Age at first birth has direct effect on fertility; early initiation of childbearing lengthens the reproductive period and subsequently increases fertility level of a country. Study of age at first birth enable researchers to forecast about subsequent fertility behavior and policy implications, especially in case of developing country like Bangladesh; where third stage of demographic transition begun as a result of continuous assessment. Multivariate techniques have been applied using BDHS-2007 data to obtain significant determinants of age at first birth of Bangladeshi women. Five factors were revealed from factor analysis where consciousness of parents and fecundity factor explain the age at first birth most. Linear discriminant analysis revealed that 70.9% of original grouped cases were correctly classified according to the obtained factors where, sensitivity of discriminant function was 71.9% and the specificity was 65.1%. Findings suggest that; there is a complex structure to the decision-making for first parity along with couple’s awareness about population boost, fecundity, couple’s educational level and, mother’s participation on labor force.

American Journal of Public Health Research. 2013, 1(7), 191-195. DOI: 10.12691/ajphr-1-7-8
Pub. Date: August 13, 2013

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Development and Implementation of the Standards for Evaluating and Reporting Epidemiologic Studies on Chronic Disease Incidence or Prevalence

by Tatyana Shamliyan, Mohammed T. Ansari, Gowri Raman, Nancy Berkman, Mark Grant, Gail Janes, Margaret Maglione, David Moher, Mona Nasser, Karen Robinson, Jodi Segal and Sophia Tsouros

Original Research

We aimed to develop quality checklists for observational non-therapeutic studies. Based on a systematic review of current practices of quality assessment of observational studies, collaborating co-authors from Evidence-based Practice Centers and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention developed a new checklist for studies examining incidence and prevalence of chronic conditions, evaluated face and content validity, and discrimination validity to distinguish reporting from methodological quality. This new checklist is available in text format or as a relational database to produce standardized reports with flaws in reporting quality, external (six criteria), and internal (five criteria) validity of the studies. Study and hypotheses (subgroups) level analyses are possible with predetermined in protocol templates criteria of major and minor flaws. Consensus around justified research specific methodological standards and reliability tests should precede quality evaluation of primary studies to assure confidence in quality assessment. To be effective, policy decisions should be made based on comprehensive systematic evidence reviews that include transparent, standardized quality appraisals. Implementation of the developed checklists would increase transparency and quality of research leading to effective informed decisions in health care.

American Journal of Public Health Research. 2013, 1(7), 183-190. DOI: 10.12691/ajphr-1-7-7
Pub. Date: August 23, 2013

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A Comparative Analysis of Health Indicators of Nigeria and Rwanda: A Nigerian Volunteer’s Perspective

by Joshua Istifanus Anekoson

Review Article

Background: Nigeria and Rwanda are both developing countries located in Sub-Saharan Africa. They are differently endowed with natural and human resources but what does that translates into in terms of health care?This study aimed at a critical comparative analysis of selected health indicators of Nigeria and Rwanda(a country ravaged by genocide 16 years ago). Materials and Methods: I performed MEDLINE and bibliographic searches for English-language studies relevant to health indicators of Nigeria and Rwanda, including a search of non-indexed local journals. Personal observation and experience as Nigerian Technical Aid Corp Volunteer in Rwanda from May 2005 to May 2007 was also used. The information obtained included: demographic and socioeconomic data, mortality statistics, selected burden of diseases, health service coverage, risk factors for some diseases, health system resources and health expenditure of Nigeria and Rwanda. Results: The findings showed that most of the health indicators such as poverty index, life expectancy, child mortalities, immunisation coverage, contraceptive prevalence, access to improved drinking water, tuberculosis treatment success, hospital beds per population, among others of Rwanda are better than that of Nigeria despite the huge human and natural resources Nigeria is endowed with. Conclusion: There is need for concerted effort at the Federal, State and Local levels in Nigeria to harness the human and natural resources of the nations to improve on the health status of the people, and this should bemulti-sectoral, multi-dimensional and disciplinary in nature.

American Journal of Public Health Research. 2013, 1(7), 177-182. DOI: 10.12691/ajphr-1-7-6
Pub. Date: August 20, 2013

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Knowledge and Practice of Injection Safety among Workers of Nigerian Prison Service Health Facilities in Kaduna State

by Audu Onyemocho, Joshua Istifanus Anekoson and Enokela Onum Pius

Original Research

Injection safety practice is an important component of basic infection control but in low income settings like the prisons where the seroprevalence of blood borne infections are significantly higher. These remains neglected under the pressure of overwhelming social, economic and political challenges and put the patients and healthcare providers at risk of infectious and non-infectious adverse events. This study assessed the level of knowledge and practice of injection safety among health care workers of Nigerian prison service health facilities in Kaduna State, Command. A cross sectional descriptive study using multistage sampling technique was employed by means of structured interviewer administered questionnaire to 138 prison health workers carried out in January 2012. Data analysis was by use of Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS version 17), with statistical significance set at p-value of 0.05. The findings showed that 54.3% of Health workers had good knowledge score of key injection safety issues, while 16.7% and 29.0% had had fair and poor general knowledge scores respectively. About half (50.4%) had fair practice of injection safety. There was statistical significance between knowledge and practice of injection safety in relation to cadre of staff (p value 0.000), staff that had training on injection safety (p value 0.003) and years of experience of the staff (p value 0.032) respectively. There was good knowledge score and fair practice of injection safety among health workers. The determinant factors were the cadre, training and years of experience of the workers. Therefore, it was concluded that regular and on the job training programs on core aspect of injection safety among health workers should be conducted by the health departments of Nigerian prison service on regular basis.

American Journal of Public Health Research. 2013, 1(7), 171-176. DOI: 10.12691/ajphr-1-7-5
Pub. Date: July 24, 2013

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Collaborations between Public Health and Computer Science: A Path Worth Pursuing

by Jennifer A. Epstein

Commentary

Collaboration between public health and computer science shows much promise. The history of the two disciplines is discussed. Examples of recent efforts at collaboration are described to give a flavor of where this path may be going. These studies ranged from some showing effectiveness to others demonstrating the infancy of the collaboration at this point in time. Technology and computer science offer public health many new technological advances by making further use of the internet, enhancements in public health informatics, using computer science to accomplish clinical work gathered by physicians to name a few examples. Still other computer science research concentrations such as animation and virtual reality deserve further exploration. Pursuing this path is certainly worth taking to further advance knowledge and the mission of public health primarily through collaborative efforts taken by individuals/teams in the two disciplines. A collaboration with computer science will help bring public health to meet the 21^st century both in terms of challenges and technology.

American Journal of Public Health Research. 2013, 1(7), 166-170. DOI: 10.12691/ajphr-1-7-4
Pub. Date: August 09, 2013

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Effects of Light’s Colour Temperatures on Visual Comfort Level, Task Performances, and Alertness among Students

by B.M.T Shamsul, C.C. Sia, Y.G Ng and K. Karmegan

Original Research

Introduction: Correlated colour temperatures (CCT) of the light source in indoor environment plays an imperative role in addressing both psychological and physiological functions of the occupant. As one of the determinants of lighting quality, CCT are off particular importance which affects quality of work and in classroom learning. Objective: The aim of this study is to determine the effects of warm white light (WWL) (CCT = 3,000K), cool white light (CWL) (CCT = 4,000K) and artificial daylight (DL) (CCT=6,500K) on the performances, subjective alertness level, visual comfort level and preferences of student in Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Universiti Putra Malaysia. Methodology: A laboratory controlled experiment was conducted on total of 47 undergraduate students volunteered to participate in a series of test under three coloured light sources. FrACT software was used to assess visual task performance, modified OLS questionnaire was used to evaluate subjective comfort level and preferences, typing test and KSS alertness level monitoring was conducted. Result: Significant increase was observed in subjective alertness level (p=0.041) and computer-based performances (p=0.001) under DL condition in relative to WWL condition. In terms of typing performances, respondents performed significantly better in term of typing speed under CWL than DL and WWL. Least typing errors were made under DL, followed by CWL and WWL. CWL is the most preferred (p=0.001) and most comfortable (p=0.011) CCT environment where subjects indicated the ability to perform task longer in this coloured-lit environment. Conclusion: The study concludes that the CWL and DL were more beneficial for alertness level and academically activities for both computer-based and paper-based activities.

American Journal of Public Health Research. 2013, 1(7), 159-165. DOI: 10.12691/ajphr-1-7-3
Pub. Date: July 26, 2013

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Accelerating Empowerment for Sustainable Development: The Need for Health Systems Strengthening in Sub-Saharan Africa

by Oyibo Patrick Gold and Ejughemre Ufuoma John

Review Article

Sub-Saharan Africa is lagging behind in achieving the United Nations Millennium development goals particularly those which are directly health related. Although there have been some level of commitments with improvements on many fronts; however, the divide still remains in the region where the issues of high child and maternal mortality, under nutrition, human rights violation and overall weak health systems still continue to pervade. This bothers on the poor state of health of many of its citizens which is further exacerbated by the harrowing conditions of health care delivery and the health systems in general. While the region lags behind, this doesn’t give the overall global reflections as there have been tremendous achievements in health and health care. Significant strides in epidemiology, population health and health systems have addressed most of the challenges of communicable diseases and these matched with technological inputs have met the basic health needs of humans and accelerated health care delivery. More so, scientific breakthrough in agriculture has also helped to tackle the challenges of hunger and under nutrition globally. These trends in a nut shell have improved on the health and overall developmental indices of humans globally. However, sub-Saharan Africa needs to be at par with the rest of the World if the MDGs are anything to go by. It is these that necessitate the need for an accelerated empowerment to strengthen the existing weak health systems in the region.

American Journal of Public Health Research. 2013, 1(7), 152-158. DOI: 10.12691/ajphr-1-7-2
Pub. Date: July 01, 2013

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Donor Support and the Impacts on Health System Strengthening in Sub-Saharan Africa: Assessing the Evidence through a Review of the Literature

by Ufuoma Ejughemre

Review Article

The signing of the United Nations millennium development goals created a platform for the injection of billions of dollars of donor funds into countries with great need. As it were, this funding is meant to accelerate the achievement of these goals by the year 2015 considering that amongst others, they will help in improving healthcare delivery and strengthen health systems. Of particular concern is the situation in sub-Saharan Africa. So far, the impact of donor support in the region has being fairly remarkable with funding to combat major health problems reaching unprecedented levels in recent times with improvements on certain fronts. However, reports have it that besides other issues in many instances funds are allocated only to disease specific projects (“vertical programming”) rather than to broad based investments (“horizontal programming”). Furthermore, the problem of corruption and mismanagement of these funds in many of the recipient countries are bothering issues warranting urgent solutions. As these issues do come to bear, it is critical to state that donor support is only a part of the development picture. There is now the need for sustainable policies for gradually exiting from donor funding for health, without which these countries dependant on humanitarian actors, will continue to cripple their ability to be self-sufficient and self reliant, and should these agencies cease to continue or run out of funding the consequences for the region are dire.

American Journal of Public Health Research. 2013, 1(7), 146-151. DOI: 10.12691/ajphr-1-7-1
Pub. Date: July 07, 2013

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