Menstrual health and hygiene knowledge among post menarche adolescent school girls in urban and rural Tanzania.

Adolescent girls' capacity to lead healthy lives and perform well in school has been hampered by their lack of awareness about menstruation and the requirements for its hygienic management. Lack of enabling infrastructure, improper menstrual supplies, and limited socioeconomic support for good menstrual health and cleanliness are characteristics of schools in Africa South of the Sahara. We evaluated school-age girls' knowledge of menstrual hygiene and identified bottlenecks that could affect policy and programming for menstrual health and hygiene.

Community knowledge, attitudes, and practices regarding epilepsy in Mahenge, Tanzania: A socio-anthropological study in an onchocerciasis-endemic area with a high prevalence of epilepsy.

Background: Throughout Africa, epilepsy is a highly stigmatized condition. It is often considered to be contagious. This study aimed to assess community knowledge, attitude, and practices toward epilepsy in four villages namely Mdindo, Msogezi, Mzelezi, and Sali within Mahenge division, in Morogoro region, Tanzania.

Understanding factors influencing linkage to HIV care in a rural setting, Mbeya, Tanzania: qualitative findings of a mixed methods study.

Background: In remote rural Tanzania, the rate of linkage into HIV care was estimated at 28% in 2014. This study explored facilitators and barriers to linkage to HIV care at individual/patient, health care provider, health system, and contextual levels to inform eventual design of interventions to improve linkage to HIV care.

Methods: We conducted a descriptive qualitative study nested in a cohort study of 1012 newly diagnosed HIV-positive individuals in Mbeya region between August 2014 and July 2015.

Processes and dynamics of linkage to care from mobile/outreach and facility-based HIV testing models in hard-to-reach settings in rural Tanzania. Qualitative findings of a mixed methods study.

Background: Like other countries, Tanzania instituted mobile and outreach testing approaches to address low HIV testing rates at health facilities and enhance linkage to care. Available evidence from hard-to-reach rural settings of Mbeya region, Tanzania suggests that clients testing HIV+ at facility-based sites are more likely to link to care, and to link sooner, than those testing at mobile sites. This paper (1) describes the populations accessing HIV testing at mobile/outreach and facility-based testing sites, and (2) compares processes and dynamics from testing to linkage to care between these two testing models from the same study context.

Linkage into care among newly diagnosed HIV-positive individuals tested through outreach and facility-based HIV testing models in Mbeya, Tanzania: a prospective mixed-method cohort study.

Objective: Linkage to care is the bridge between HIV testing and HIV treatment, care and support. In Tanzania, mobile testing aims to address historically low testing rates. Linkage to care was reported at 14% in 2009 and 28% in 2014.

Acceptability of malaria rapid diagnostic tests administered by village health workers in Pangani District, North eastern Tanzania.

Background: Malaria continues to top the list of the ten most threatening diseases to child survival in Tanzania. The country has a functional policy for appropriate case management of malaria with rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs) from hospital level all the way to dispensaries, which are the first points of healthcare services in the national referral system. However, access to these health services in Tanzania is limited, especially in rural areas.

Determinants of demand for condoms to prevent HIV infections among barmaids and guesthouse workers in two districts, Tanzania.

Background: Condoms are scientifically recommended as potential products for preventing infections attributable to human immuno-deficiency viruses (HIV). However, evidence on factors leading to their inadequate use in developing countries is still scanty. This paper reports an exploratory study of factors constraining condoms use in Tanzania from the perspectives of barmaids, guest-house workers and retailers.

"Protect Your Loved Ones From Fataki": Discouraging Cross-Generational Sex in Tanzania.

The Fataki campaign aired in Tanzania via radio from 2008 to 2011 to address cross-generational sex, a major driver of HIV in the region. The campaign sought to incite social disapproval of men who engage in such relationships, generate dialogue around the issue, and encourage community interventions in these relationships through social learning. Using qualitative methods, we explored campaign reactions, use of the term Fataki to describe men in relationships with much younger women, and the nature of discussions spurred by the campaign.

Knowledge of occupational exposure to HIV: a cross sectional study of healthcare workers in Tumbi and Dodoma hospitals, Tanzania.

Background: Insufficient knowledge on blood-borne pathogens has been identified as a factor that influences occupational exposure to needle stick and sharps injuries. The objective of this study was to assess healthcare workers' knowledge on occupational exposure to HIV.

Methods: A cross sectional survey was conducted at Tumbi designated regional hospital and Dodoma regional hospital, Tanzania in February 2012.

Magnitude of HIV infection among older people in Mufindi and Babati districts of the Tanzania mainland.

Introduction: According to the 2011-2012 HIV and Malaria Indicator Survey, the prevalence of HIV infection in Tanzania is 5.1%, with limited information on its magnitude among older people, as the community believes that the elderly are not at risk. Consequently, little attention is given to the fight against HIV and AIDS in this group.

How experiences become data: the process of eliciting adverse event, medical history and concomitant medication reports in antimalarial and antiretroviral interaction trials.

Background: Accurately characterizing a drug's safety profile is essential. Trial harm and tolerability assessments rely, in part, on participants' reports of medical histories, adverse events (AEs), and concomitant medications. Optimal methods for questioning participants are unclear, but different methods giving different results can undermine meta-analyses.

Acceptability of condom promotion and distribution among 10-19 year-old adolescents in Mpwapwa and Mbeya rural districts, Tanzania.

Background: The HIV/AIDS pandemic remains a leading challenge for global health. Although condoms are acknowledged for their key role on preventing HIV transmission, low and inappropriate use of condoms persists in Tanzania and elsewhere in Africa. This study assesses factors affecting acceptability of condom promotion and distribution among adolescents in Mpwapwa and Mbeya rural districts of Tanzania.

The use of antenatal and postnatal care: perspectives and experiences of women and health care providers in rural southern Tanzania.

Background: Although antenatal care coverage in Tanzania is high, worrying gaps exist in terms of its quality and ability to prevent, diagnose or treat complications. Moreover, much less is known about the utilisation of postnatal care, by which we mean the care of mother and baby that begins one hour after the delivery until six weeks after childbirth. We describe the perspectives and experiences of women and health care providers on the use of antenatal and postnatal services.

Intermittent preventive treatment for malaria and anaemia control in Tanzanian infants; the development and implementation of a public health strategy.

Minimizing the time between efficacy studies and public health action is important to maximize health gains. We report the rationale, development and implementation of a district-based strategy for the implementation of intermittent preventive treatment in infants (IPTi) for malaria and anaemia control in Tanzania. From the outset, a research team worked with staff from all levels of the health system to develop a public-health strategy that could continue to function once the research team withdrew.

Development of behaviour change communication strategy for a vaccination-linked malaria control tool in southern Tanzania.

Background: Intermittent preventive treatment of malaria in infants (IPTi) using sulphadoxine-pyrimethamine and linked to the expanded programme on immunization (EPI) is a promising strategy for malaria control in young children. As evidence grows on the efficacy of IPTi as public health strategy, information is needed so that this novel control tool can be put into practice promptly, once a policy recommendation is made to implement it. This paper describes the development of a behaviour change communication strategy to support implementation of IPTi by the routine health services in southern Tanzania, in the context of a five-year research programme evaluating the community effectiveness of IPTi.

Health and survival of young children in southern Tanzania.

Background: With a view to developing health systems strategies to improve reach to high-risk groups, we present information on health and survival from household and health facility perspectives in five districts of southern Tanzania.

Methods: We documented availability of health workers, vaccines, drugs, supplies and services essential for child health through a survey of all health facilities in the area. We did a representative cluster sample survey of 21,600 households using a modular questionnaire including household assets, birth histories, and antenatal care in currently pregnant women.

Understanding home-based neonatal care practice in rural southern Tanzania.

In order to understand home-based neonatal care practices in rural Tanzania, with the aim of providing a basis for the development of strategies for improving neonatal survival, we conducted a qualitative study in southern Tanzania. In-depth interviews, focus group discussions and case studies were used through a network of female community-based informants in eight villages of Lindi Rural and Tandahimba districts. Data collection took place between March 2005 and April 2007.

Factors affecting home delivery in rural Tanzania.

Background: Studies of factors affecting place of delivery have rarely considered the influence of gender roles and relations within the household. This study combines an understanding of gender issues relating to health and help-seeking behaviour with epidemiological knowledge concerning place of delivery.

Methods: In-depth interviews, focus group discussions and participant observation were used to explore determinants of home delivery in southern Tanzania.

Targeted subsidy for malaria control with treated nets using a discount voucher system in Tanzania.

During the last decade insecticide-treated nets have become a key strategy for malaria control. Social marketing is an appealing tool for getting such nets to poor rural African communities who are most afflicted by malaria. This approach usually involves subsidized prices to make nets and insecticide more affordable and help establish a commercial market.

Medical syncretism with reference to malaria in a Tanzanian community.

What happens when new health information is introduced into a community? We have explored this question in a semi-rural community of Southeastern Tanzania whose population has been in contact with biomedicine for many decades. With the example of malaria, we illustrate how biomedical knowledge transmitted in health messages coexists, interacts and merges with local pre-existing ideas and logics. The results are syncretic models, which may deviate considerably from what health promoters intended to transmit.