Breaking barriers: How transwomen meet their healthcare needs.

Background:  Transgender women - individuals assigned male at birth but who identify as female - are disproportionately affected by, among others, human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), other sexually transmitted diseases (STIs) and mental health issues. Studies show that transgender women often encounter discrimination and stigma when seeking healthcare from health facilities.

Aim:  This study assessed the healthcare needs of transgender women, their experiences of the mainstream healthcare system and alternative strategies for navigating the healthcare system.

Improving the distribution of antiretroviral medicines through centralised dispensing: perspectives of HIV+ patients and nurses at a chronic dispensing unit in Ekurhuleni, Gauteng Province, South Africa.

Introduction: South Africa's public healthcare facilities are continuously inundated with arduous challenges. A Chronic Dispensing Unit (CDU) can help to alleviate these challenges by reducing the workload of nurses at Primary Health Care clinics, decrease patient waiting time, and enhance accessibility of antiretroviral treatment (ART) for HIV+ patients through the dispensing, packaging, and distribution of chronic medicines to stable patients. Determining the effectiveness of a CDU is therefore critical as it can benefit both the patients and the CDU as a service provider.

Deploying a Fotonovela to Combat Methamphetamine Abuse among South Africans with Varying Levels of Health Literacy.

Poor health literacy in the Western Cape Province of South Africa is one of the main factors hampering methamphetamine (MA) use prevention efforts in the area, where the abuse of this drug is a major health and social problem affecting especially previously disadvantaged communities. In the first part of a two-part study, we compared a health-related fotonovela about MA to an existing brochure group and a control group. Main findings show that the vast majority of readers preferred the fotonovela over the existing brochure.

Using a fotonovela to battle crystal meth in South Africa.

This study evaluated the effects of a health-related fotonovela about crystal meth (S-methamphetamine hydrochloride) among "Colored" people (an ethnic label for people of mixed race) in the Western Cape province of South Africa. Crystal meth use is most common among Colored people in this province and it is considered a major social problem. The fotonovela was compared to a no-message control group and a traditional brochure in a randomized controlled trial ( 303).