by Deidre White and Tekleab Gala
Original Research
Lead (Pb), the useful metal element of the natural environment, can be poisonous when it is absorbed by the body. In the United States, lead poisoning remains a major concern to children, especially in Chicago where still 1 out of every 6 children is affected. Therefore, the goal of this study is to evaluate the spatial distribution of aggregated children’s elevated BLLs in Chicago’s neighborhoods and its relationship with the social-economic, behavioral, and cognitive risk factors. Geovisualization, geospatial pattern analysis, and spatially-resolved spatial modeling tools built-in ArcGIS were used. Accordingly, significant geographical control of the BLLs was detected such that lower BLLs were detected in the central, northern, far northern, and southwestern sides of the city, while the higher BLLs were detected in the western, southern, and southwestern sides of the city (i.e., I = 0.34, permutation 999, and p-value 0.001). This distribution has shown statistically significant associations (i.e., R2 = 40 – 54; and P < 0.05), with the social-economic, behavioral, and cognitive variables, indicating the likelihood of incidences of violent crimes, poverty, minority, and lower students’ performances, in the higher BLLs areas. However, it is not clear if these factors’ associations imply causations to the higher/lower BLLs or vice versa. Therefore, further studies would be critical to establishing, how many of these associations are the causations.
American Journal of Public Health Research. 2022, 10(3), 124-133. DOI: 10.12691/ajphr-10-3-5
Pub. Date: June 15, 2022
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by Tekleab Gala and Anita Holmes
Original Research
The population of aging African Americans is growing every year, and so is its ratio to the working population. The main issue concerning aging African Americans is their post-retirement economic security and finding locations suited for their quality retirement. Hence, this study assessed settlement patterns of older African Americans in Chicagoland and relations with the patterns of African Americans of all ages and older Americans of all races. Accordingly, the older African American population, 65 years and above, represent 11% of the older Americans of all races. Moreover, in 291 census tracts, found in 4 of the 6 Chicagoland counties, significant clustering (i.e., P-value <0.05) of the higher percent older African American population is observed. This distribution is positively associated with the population of African Americans of all ages and older Americans of all races (i.e., P-value <0.05). Therefore, the settlement patterns of aging African Americans in Chicagoland follow a few attributes of Aging in place as well as local relocation to attain a better-quality retirement in some suburban neighborhoods.
American Journal of Public Health Research. 2022, 10(3), 113-123. DOI: 10.12691/ajphr-10-3-4
Pub. Date: June 15, 2022
1995 Views1 Downloads
by Roksana Khanam, Azra Shamiha Asha, Shahin Mahmud and Fatama Tous Zohora
Original Research
In children and young adults, myopia is the leading cause of preventable blindness. Multiple epidemiological studies have confirmed that Asian countries have a high frequency of myopia. The aim of the study to determine the prevalence of myopia and to investigate factors associated with myopia/refractive error among different ages students in Bangladesh. The prevalence of myopia was measured in a cross-sectional study of 300 (three hundred) students in Tangail, Bangladesh. To investigate the relationship between different risk variables and myopia, Chi-square tests and logistic regression analysis were used. Out of total 300 students, 159 (53%) were myopic. Among the participants, 55 % were between the ages of 18 and 24 years, and there was a statistically significant relationship (p < 0.001). The prevalence of myopia was higher in female (58.7 % of myopic students) than male. Family history of myopia was positive in 62.9% myopic students. The sleeping hours of 36% students were < 6 hours, 6 hours in 31.3%, 7 hours in 24% and > 8 hours per day in 8.7%. There were a strong significant relationship between refractive error and insufficient time spent on outdoor activities, low light work activity, spending their time on electronic devices etc. No significant statistical relationship was found between refractive error and diabetes, steroidal medications, blood pressure, smoking, dietary intake and allergic problem. The study revealed some key determinants of myopia that will help to expand our knowledge about health and future research.
American Journal of Public Health Research. 2022, 10(3), 106-112. DOI: 10.12691/ajphr-10-3-3
Pub. Date: June 10, 2022
2169 Views2 Downloads
by Mbogo N. Kija, Sharadhuli I. Kimera and Ladslaus L. Mnyone
Original Research
The malaria transmission is largely dictated by climatic, topographic and ecological factors that vary widely from one area or cluster to the other, and to some extent we are lacking some basic background information on malaria especially in higher education institutions within Tanzania. Therefore, a need for more refined area specific interventions that would better consider the past record of malaria data for scrutinizing the disease trend so as to be in a position to act accordingly towards malaria elimination. A retrospective study was conducted to determine a ten-year (2011 – 2020) trend on malaria prevalence based on patients who were attended from a catchment health facility in each institution. We used only malaria cases data diagnosed using either microscopy and/or malaria rapid diagnostic test (mRDT). A binary logistic regression test was significant for the test variables at p < 0.05 and the results showed that; males were likely to be malaria positive by 3.3 percent less compared to females, dry season by 2.6 percent less compared to wet season, Jordan by 2.3 times more than SUA and Mzumbe by 17.8% less as compared to SUA. Overall, SUA had many positive case (n= 27 320) followed by Mzumbe (n= 23 690) and Jordan (n= 14 959). The overall trend of malaria positive cases seemed to decrease starting from 2017 onwards thou the observed prevalence (34.1%) is far high when compared to the national prevalence of 9.5% reported in 2017. Thus, we would recommend for the institutions to have a clear medical record system regarding student’s health status for timely and appropriate decision making.
American Journal of Public Health Research. 2022, 10(3), 98-105. DOI: 10.12691/ajphr-10-3-2
Pub. Date: May 23, 2022
2011 Views3 Downloads
by Sadiki S. Kakomo, Jahashi S. Nzalawahe and Eliakunda M. Mafie
Original Research
Community can be at risk of being infected with gastrointestinal parasites due to lack of awareness. The semi-structured questionnaires were administered randomly to 400 respondents (vendors and consumers of fruits and vegetables) at the five purposively selected public markets in Zanzibar. The markets were Mwanakwerekwe, Mombasa, Darajani, Chakechake and Wete. The data that were collected included demographic characteristics of the study respondents and their awareness on the knowledge of aetiology, clinical signs, transmission and control practices with regard to gastrointestinal parasites contamination on fruits and vegetables marketed in Zanzibar. The results showed that, 75.5% of the respondents were aware on gastrointestinal parasites. The respondents were found to have good knowledge of control practices (85.3%), followed by transmission (80.5%), clinical signs (69.5%) and knowledge of aetiology (56.4%) on gastrointestinal parasites. The findings of this study indicated that community in Zanzibar were aware on transmission and control practices for fruits and vegetables contamination with gastrointestinal parasites.
American Journal of Public Health Research. 2022, 10(3), 90-97. DOI: 10.12691/ajphr-10-3-1
Pub. Date: May 05, 2022
1672 Views2 Downloads