Community satisfaction with the urban health extension service in South Ethiopia and associated factors. BMC Health Serv Res. April 2015; 15: 160.
Authors: Ephrem Lejore Sibamo and Tezera Moshago Berheto
Background - The urban health extension program (UHEP) is an innovative government plan to ensure health equity by creating demand for essential health services through the provision of appropriate health information at a household level. It aims to improve the overall health of a community through active participation and utilization of services, which depends on satisfaction and acceptance of the program. However, there is no study on community satisfaction with the services provided by the UHEP in Ethiopia. This study was aimed to assess the level of community satisfaction with the UHEP in Hadiya Zone, South Ethiopia, and the associated factors with it.
Methods - A community based cross-sectional study, using quantitative and qualitative methods of data collection, was employed. Quantitative data were collected from 407 respondents using a structured questionnaire. Descriptive statistics, bivariate and multiple regression analyses were performed. P-value less than 0.05 and 95% confidence intervals were used to determine an association between independent and dependent variables. Qualitative data were collected through focus group discussions with village health committee members and model families in Hadiya Zone.
Results - The majority (67.4%) of respondents were satisfied with the services provided by the UHEP. The communities’ perceptions of technical competency (ß = 0.425; 95% CIs 0.084, 0.34), interpersonal relationships (ß = 0.506; 95% CIs 0.216, 0.797), and perceived accessibility of services (ß = 0.752; 95% CIs 0.064, 0.86) were independent predictors of satisfaction (P < 0.05). In addition, the marital status, knowledge, and attitudes of the respondents were associated with community satisfaction.
Conclusion - A community’s satisfaction with UHEP has supposed to have a significant influence on the community’s utilization of the services and implementation of the program. The present study have clearly shown that majority of the respondents were satisfied with the services provided by urban health extension program.
USAID’s Urban Sanitation Website – Link
Sanitation has been called the urgent problem, and nowhere do we see this urgency more than the sprawling, rapidly expanding urban environments of the developing world. In the next three decades, 2.5 billion people will migrate into the world’s urban areas, 90 percent of them in Africa and Asia. Rapid urbanization will pose development challenges unlike those the global community has faced in the past. This is why USAID, through its U.S. Global Development Lab, is making urban sanitation a new global priority. 
On the Urban Sanitation Frontlines: India, Ghana and Indonesia
The challenges posed by two, interrelated 21st century trends—poor sanitation and rapid urbanization—are best told by three African and Asian countries on the front lines of the global urban sanitation challenge.
Urban Sanitation in India
The world’s second most populous country has lifted hundreds of millions out of extreme poverty. But poor sanitation infrastructure and rapid urbanization make India an essential piece of the puzzle in the search for effective urban sanitation solutions. Insufficient sanitation coverage negatively affects India’s GDP by approximately 6.4 percent per year. Sanitation and clean water are the Government of India’s top development priority. In support of this effort, USAID will seek partners to collaborate on urban sanitation solutions in India in early 2015.
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Mobile solutions for urban health challenges by Lin Fabiano, Director, Worldwide Corporate Contributions, Johnson & Johnson | Source: Skoll World Forum, April 24, 2015
In Kibera, a settlement within Nairobi, Kenya, one is enveloped by the fast-paced energy and constant buzz of activity, with shopkeepers displaying cloth, food stall owners preparing meals, and children in school uniforms rushing down the street. With up to a million people living within a five-kilometer radius, one is never really alone, but it is easy to feel lonely.
Many people flock to cities seeking economic opportunities, and by most accounts, fare better than their rural counterparts. However, low-income city dwellers, especially women, are often vulnerable to the harsh realities of urban living that can affect their health and well-being. Urban areas often lack appropriate sanitation, good air quality, clean water and regular electricity, which are important components of good health. And while cities can offer women more choices in terms of access to health care, they often don’t foster the strong, deep social networks that provide support in most rural settings.
We are also learning that in an urban setting, a woman’s preferences and needs are different. The urban woman is more likely employed outside the home in order to provide for herself and her family. Unfortunately, young women who leave their rural villages for cities are often detached from their traditional networks of close female family and friends and must forge new relationships to seek guidance on the day-to-day rigors of city living. Mobile devices can provide access to the kind of information typically shared through those missing social networks.
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Building Social Networks for Maternal and Newborn Health in Poor Urban Settlements: A Cross-Sectional Study in Bangladesh. PLoS One, April 2015.
Authors: Alayne M. Adams , Herfina Y. Nababan, S. M. Manzoor Ahmed Hanifi
Background - The beneficial influence of social networks on health and wellbeing is well-established. In poor urban settlements in Bangladesh, BRAC’s Manoshi programme trains community health workers (CHWs) to support women through pregnancy, delivery and postpartum periods. This paper test the hypothesis that the introduction of CHWs as weak ties into the social networks of Manoshi members mediates improvements in maternal and neonatal health (MNH) best practices by providing support, facilitating ideational change, connecting mother to resources, and strengthening or countering the influence of strong ties.
Methods - 1000 women who had given birth in the last three months were identified and interviewed as part of ongoing monitoring of 5 poor urban settlements in Dhaka, Bangladesh. A social networks questionnaire was administered which elicited women’s perceived networks around pregnancy, delivery and post-partum periods. Mediation analysis was performed to test the hypothesis that penetration of Manoshi CHWs into women’s perceived networks has a beneficial effect on MNH best practises.
Results - The presence and influence of Manoshi CHWs in women’s networks significantly mediated the effect of Manoshi membership on MNH best practices. Respondents who were Manoshi members and who listed Manoshi CHWs as part of their support networks were significantly more likely to deliver with a trained birth attendant (OR 3.61; 95%CI 2.36–5.51), to use postnatal care (OR 3.09; 95%CI 1.83–5.22), and to give colostrum to their newborn (OR 7.51; 95%CI 3.51–16.05).
Conclusion - Manoshi has succeeded in penetrating the perceived pregnancy, delivery and post-partum networks of poor urban women through the introduction of trained CHWs. Study findings demonstrate the benefits of moving beyond urban health care delivery models that concentrate on the provision of clinical services by medical providers, to an approach that nurtures the power of social networks as a means to support the poorest and most marginalized in changing behaviour and effectively accessing appropriate maternal services.
Municipal finance for sanitation in African cities: briefing note, 2015.
Authors: Norman, G., Tremolet, S. Public Finance for WASH, Water & Sanitation for the Urban Poor (WSUP).
In cities in low and low-middle-income countries throughout the world, municipal budget allocations to sanitation are typically very low. Furthermore, detailed information on exactly how much money is budgeted, and how exactly it is spent, is very hard to obtain.
This brief summarises recent data on budget allocations to sanitation in four African municipalities. The data is patchy and incomplete, but as far as we know this is the only published information currently available on municipal budget allocations to sanitation in African cities.
Identical Assemblage of Giardia duodenalis in Humans, Animals and Vegetables in an Urban Area in Southern Brazil Indicates a Relationship among Them. PLoS One, March 2015.
Authors: Cristiane Maria Colli , Renata Coltro Bezagio, et al.
This is the first study in Brazil that reports the connection among humans, dogs and vegetables in the transmission dynamics of G. duodenalis in the same geographic area finding identical assemblage. BIV assemblage was the most frequently observed among these different links in the epidemiological chain.
Prevalence of Endemic Pig-Associated Zoonoses in Southeast Asia: A Review of Findings from the Lao People’s Democratic Republic. Am Jnl Trop Med Hyg, Mar 2015.
Authors: Anna L. Okello, Stephanie Burniston, et al.
The increasing intensification of pork production in southeast Asia necessitates an urgent requirement to better understand the dual impact of pig-associated zoonotic disease on both pig production and human health in the region. Sharing porous borders with five countries and representing many regional ethnicities and agricultural practices, Lao People’s Democratic Republic (Lao PDR) appears well placed to gauge the levels of pig-associated zoonoses circulating in the wider region.
All things zoonotic: An ‘Urban Zoo’ research project tracks livestock-based pathogen flows in and around Nairobi, March 2015. International Livestock Research Institute.
An Urban Zoo research project in Kenya (more formally called ‘Epidemiology, Ecology and Socio‐Economics of Disease Emergence in Nairobi’) is tracking pathogen flows in and around Kenya’s capital city. Urban Zoo researchers are investigating mechanisms leading to the introduction and subsequent spread of pathogens into urban populations through livestock commodity value chains. The focus of the project is on livestock as sources of these pathogens because emerging diseases are likely to be zoonotic in origin (that is, able to spread from animals to people) and because livestock pathogens, through the close interactions between livestock, their products and people, are at high of risk crossing the species barrier.
One Health: The Theory and Practice of Integrated Health Approaches, March 2015.
Edited by J Zinsstag, Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute, Switzerland, E Schelling, Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute, Switzerland, M Whittaker, University of Queensland, Herston, Australia, M Tanner, Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute, Switzerland, D Waltner-Toews, Professor Emeritus. University of Guelph, Canada.
The One Health concept of combined veterinary and human health continues to gain momentum, but the supporting literature is sparse. In this book, the origins of the concept are examined and practical content on methodological tools, data gathering, monitoring techniques, study designs, and mathematical models is included. Zoonotic diseases, with discussions of diseases of wildlife, farm animals, domestic pets and humans, and real-world issues such as sanitation, economics, food security and evaluating the success of vaccination programmes are covered in detail. Discussing how to put policy into practice, and with case studies throughout, this book combines research and practice in one broad-ranging volume.
The role of wildlife in the transmission of parasitic zoonoses in peri-urban and urban areas. International Journal for Parasitology: Parasites and Wildlife, Apr 2015.
Authors: Ute Mackenstedt, et al.
Highlights
- Urbanization has a huge impact on the transmission of zoonotic parasites.
- Adaptable wild animals are attracted by peri-urban and urban areas.
- Composition of wildlife communities differs between rural and urban areas.
- The transmission of parasites from wild animals to humans and domestic animals in peri-urban and urban environments is far from being understood.
