Publications by authors named "Edwin Ngwa"

Article Synopsis
  • Public space initiatives (PSIs) in African cities can improve health and social well-being, but there's a lack of research on their effectiveness and implementation across the continent.
  • This study synthesizes existing literature to assess the characteristics, locations, and outcomes of PSIs, finding that sports initiatives are predominant and that most research comes from South Africa.
  • Key challenges for PSIs include limited funding, historical marginalization, and competing land uses, highlighting the need for long-term evaluations and better collaboration for sustainable health-promoting public spaces.
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Understanding how urban environments shape physical activity is critical in rapidly urbanizing countries such as South Africa. We assessed the reliability of virtual audits for characterizing urban features related to physical activity in Soweto, South Africa. We used the Microscale Audit of Pedestrian Streetscapes Global tool to characterize pedestrian-related features from Google Street View images in four neighborhoods of Soweto.

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Rates of obesity and related non-communicable diseases are on the rise in sub-Saharan Africa, associated with sub-optimal diet and physical inactivity. Implementing evidence-based interventions targeting determinants of unhealthy eating and physical inactivity in children and adolescents' immediate environments is critical to the fight against obesity and related non-communicable diseases. Setting priorities requires a wide range of stakeholders, methods, and context-specific data.

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