Publications by authors named "A M Castle"
Background: The measurement of cause-specific mortality is critical for health system planning but remains a challenge in many low-resource settings due to societal, legal, and logistical barriers. We present a co-development process with community members for the design and implementation of an autopsy program to improve cause of death data in a historically underserved population.
Methods: We sought to develop an autopsy program at the Africa Health Research Institute (AHRI) Health and Demographic Surveillance Site (HDSS).
Background: It is unclear how rising obesity among people with HIV (PWH) impacts their risk of type 2 diabetes mellitus (diabetes). We examined associations between HIV, prevalent diabetes and adiposity among South African PWH and their peers without HIV (PWOH).
Methods: HIV status was ascertained by antibody testing.
There is strong evidence that the implicit biases of health care professionals affect the treatment of patients, and that minority and other marginalized patients are disproportionately harmed. Assumptions made about patient knowledge or lack thereof function as judgments that are prone to bias, which then affect the education and advice imposed upon patients. We review how the motivational interviewing (MI) approach to patient engagement includes components of evidence-based bias-mitigating strategies, such as understanding circumstances from the patient's point of view, and therefore we propose that the MI approach can reduce the impact of bias in patient care.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Growing evidence suggests that chronic inflammation caused by tuberculosis (TB) may increase the incidence of diabetes. However, the relationship between post-TB pulmonary abnormalities and diabetes has not been well characterized.
Methods: We analyzed data from a cross-sectional study in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, of people 15 years and older who underwent chest X-ray and diabetes screening with hemoglobin A1c testing.