COVID-19 Pandemic and Food Insecurity Fuel the Mental Health Crisis in Africa.

Providing country-level estimates for prevalence rates of Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD), COVID-19 exposure and food insecurity (FI) and assessing the role of persistent threats to survival-exemplified by exposure to COVID-19 and FI-for the mental health crisis in Africa. Original phone-based survey data from Mozambique, Sierra Leone, Tanzania and Uganda (12 consecutive cross-sections in 2021; = 23,943) were analyzed to estimate prevalence rates of GAD. Logistic regression models and mediation analysis using structural equation models identify risk and protective factors.

Sexual violence affects adolescents' health and prosocial behaviour beyond other violence exposure.

Sexual violence is a public health issue among adolescents globally but remains understudied in Sub-Saharan Africa. The present study focused on the association of cumulative exposure to different types of sexual violence with mental and physical health problems and prosocial behaviour. We conducted a survey with a regionally representative sample of both in-school and out-of-school adolescents, aged 13-17 years, living in south-western Nigeria.

Abuse and humiliation in the delivery room: Prevalence and associated factors of obstetric violence in Ghana.

Background: Abuse and mistreatment of women during childbirth is a major barrier to facility-based delivery, putting women at risk of avoidable complications, trauma and negative health outcomes including death. We study the prevalence of obstetric violence (OV) and its associated factors in the Ashanti and Western Regions of Ghana.

Methodology: A facility-based cross-sectional survey was conducted in eight public health facilities from September to December 2021.

Breaking the cycles of violence with narrative exposure: Development and feasibility of NETfacts, a community-based intervention for populations living under continuous threat.

Background: Interpersonal violence damages mental health and frequently leads to aggressive defence strategies. If survivors are subsequently blamed for the events, both consequences worsen. Stigma flourishes, especially when survivors are silenced so that details of the trauma remain unknown.

The Life with Corona survey.

The COVID-19 pandemic is a global crisis affecting everyone. Yet, its challenges and countermeasures vary significantly over time and space. Individual experiences of the pandemic are highly heterogeneous and its impacts span and interlink multiple dimensions, such as health, economic, social and political impacts.

Preventing Violence by Teachers in Primary Schools: Study Protocol for a Cluster Randomized Controlled Trial in Haiti.

Context: Although teacher violence at schools is a serious problem in Haiti, there is a lack of systematic evidence on the effectiveness of school-based interventions in reducing teacher violence in this low-income country.

Objective: To test the effectiveness of the preventative intervention aiming to reduce teachers' use of violent disciplinary strategies and to improve their interaction competences with children in the Haitian context.

Design Setting Participants: The study is designed as a two-arm matched cluster randomized controlled trial.

Life With Corona: Increased Gender Differences in Aggression and Depression Symptoms Due to the COVID-19 Pandemic Burden in Germany.

Gender differences (GD) in mental health have come under renewed scrutiny during the COVID-19 pandemic. While rapidly emerging evidence indicates a deterioration of mental health in general, it remains unknown whether the pandemic will have an impact on GD in mental health. To this end, we investigate the association of the pandemic and its countermeasures affecting everyday life, labor, and households with changes in GD in aggression, anxiety, depression, and the somatic symptom burden.

Safer spaces: The impact of a reduction in road fatalities on the life expectancy of South Africans.

In this paper we determine the burden on society of fatalities resulting from road traffic injuries (RTIs) in South Africa. We express the burden in terms of reduced life expectancy and years of potential life lost (YPLL). Our main data source is the Injury Mortality Survey (IMS), a retrospective descriptive study carried out in South Africa.