Cultural and contextual adaptation of the Solastalgia subscale of the Environmental Distress Scale in drought-affected Kilifi, Kenya.

Background: There is an urgent need to measure the psychological toll of climate-related ecological degradation and destruction in low- and middle-income countries. However, availability of locally adapted tools is limited. Our objective was to conduct a transcultural translation and cultural adaptation (TTA) of the Solastalgia subscale of the Environmental Distress Scale (EDS-Solastalgia) in Kilifi, Kenya, which is undergoing transformational changes due to climate change.

Rationale, Design and Baseline Characteristics of a Randomized Controlled Trial of a Cardiovascular Quality Improvement Strategy in India: The C-QIP Trial.

Background: Quality of chronic care for cardiovascular disease (CVD) remains suboptimal worldwide. The Collaborative Quality ImProvement (C-QIP) trial aims to develop and test the feasibility and clinical effect of a multicomponent strategy among patients with prevalent CVD in India.

Methods: The C-QIP is a clinic-based, open randomized trial of a multicomponent intervention vs usual care that was locally developed and adapted for use in Indian settings through rigorous formative research guided by Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research (CFIR).

Patients as knowledge partners in the context of complex chronic conditions.

This article conveys how taking patient knowledge seriously can improve patient experience and further medical science. In clinical contexts related to infection-associated chronic conditions and other complex chronic illnesses, patient knowledge is often undervalued, even when clinicians have limited training in diagnosing and treating a particular condition. Despite growing acknowledgement of the importance of patients as 'stakeholders', clinicians and medical researchers have yet to fully develop ways to evaluate and, when appropriate, meaningfully incorporate patient knowledge-experiential, scientific, social scientific, historical or otherwise-into clinical practice and research.

Framing Long Covid through Patient activism in the United States: Patient, Provider, Academic, and Policymaker Views.

In 2020, when COVID-19 patients first recognized their complex and progressive symptoms, patient activists defined "Long Covid" on social media. While patient support groups are by no means new, the predominance of online support groups and those leveraging the power of social media has become a defining characteristic of Long Covid. In this article, we argue that naming Long Covid served as a powerful conduit of legitimacy for patient activists in media, medicine, and policy.

Women´s experiences of menopause: A qualitative study among women in Soweto, South Africa.

Women today are experiencing menopause for decades more than in previous generations. This 'change of life' is defined by an entire stage of physical, hormonal, and emotional changes that accompany menstrual irregularity and the cessation of fertility, although limited medical research has focused on it. Yet, the inevitability of menopause is universal for all human females around 50 years old.

Trust, individualism, and the logics of care in middle America during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Polarization and turf-wars have characterized the COVID-19 response in the United States. While COVID-19 narratives can be binary and divisive, how people cared for each other throughout the first year of the pandemic is more nuanced. This article describes how and why constructs of fear, individualism, wellbeing, and personal risk-taking became imbued in behaviors that thwarted the risk of the collective.

Views on COVID-19 vaccination among residents of Eldoret, Kenya during the 2021 vaccine rollout.

The Government of Kenya initiated COVID-19 vaccination program in March 2021. However, vaccine uptake remains low, especially in rural areas in Kenya. We interviewed 40 residents of Eldoret town to explore the knowledge, beliefs, and meanings they attach towards vaccines generally, and why they chose to vaccinate or not.

Flourishing with chronic illness(es) and everyday stress: Experiences from Soweto, South Africa.

The pursuit of flourishing, or living a good life, is a common human endeavor with different meanings across individuals and contexts. What is needed is a further exploration of the relationship between flourishing and health, particularly chronic illness, which affects individuals across the life course and is affected by experiences of stress derived from social and structural vulnerability. Drawing on data from the Soweto Syndemics study, including a locally derived stress scale and in-depth interviews, we explore the connections between flourishing and health for those living with multiple chronic illnesses in Soweto, South Africa within a syndemic of communicable and non-communicable disease.

Disentangling opioids-related overdose syndemics: a scoping review.

This article reviews research investigating the synergistic interaction of opioid-related morbidity and mortality with other social, psychiatric, and biological conditions, to describe how and why it is syndemic. Opioid-related overdose syndemics are driven by commercial interests, emerging in communities facing social and economic disadvantage, and interacting with a range of other health conditions. We included articles that empirically investigated an opioid-related syndemic, discussed syndemic co-factors associated with opioid use, or framed opioid consumption conceptually in relation to syndemics.

A review of place-related contextual factors in syndemics research.

This review investigates the extent to which a place-based approach has been used to conceptualize context, as well as the place-related contextual factors explored in studies that explicitly invoked a syndemic framework. The literature search focused on 29 peer-reviewed empirical syndemic studies. Only 11 studies used a place-based approach to define and measure contextual factors and the spatial context was denoted using administrative boundaries such as census tracts, counties, and countries.

Power, place, and access: Why history is at the center of black D.C. residents of wards 7 and 8 decisions to receive the COVID-19 vaccine.

Vaccines have played an essential role in curbing case and mortality rates due to SARS-CoV-2 in the United Sates. Still, many communities display high rates of unwillingness or inability to get a COVID-19 vaccine, limiting overall vaccination efforts and contributing to viral spread. Black Americans have expressed skepticism towards vaccines because of limited access to the technology, mistrust in its safety and efficacy, and a lack of confidence in the healthcare authorities that distribute it.

Making morbidity multiple: History, legacies, and possibilities for global health.

Multimorbidity has been framed as a pressing global health challenge that exposes the limits of systems organised around single diseases. This article seeks to expand and strengthen current thinking around multimorbidity by analysing its construction within the field of global health. We suggest that the significance of multimorbidity lies not only in challenging divisions between disease categories but also in what it reveals about the culture and history of transnational biomedicine.

Rapid range shifts in African mosquitoes over the last century.

Facing a warming climate, many tropical species-including the arthropod vectors of several infectious diseases-will be displaced to higher latitudes and elevations. These shifts are frequently projected for the future, but rarely documented in the present day. Here, we use one of the most comprehensive datasets ever compiled by medical entomologists to track the observed range limits of African malaria mosquito vectors ( spp.

Perceptions and experiences of prostate cancer patients in a public tertiary hospital in urban South Africa.

Prostate cancer is among the most prevalent forms of cancer worldwide and is reported to have the highest incidence, mortality, and 5-year prevalence rate of all cancers among men living in Africa. Despite this widespread burden in the African continent, little is known about the perspectives and experience of prostate cancer among African men. To further understand experiences among patients living in urban South Africa, we conducted in-depth, semi-structured qualitative interviews to examine the perceptions and experiences of 28 Black African prostate cancer patients receiving treatment at a major tertiary hospital in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Collaborative Quality Improvement Strategy in Secondary Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease in India: Findings from a Multi-Stakeholder, Qualitative Study using Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research (CFIR).

Background: Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is highly prevalent in India, and little is known about the perception of patients and providers about a package of collaborative quality improvement (C-QIP) strategies consisting of provider-focused electronic health records-decision support system (EHR-DSS), non-physician health workers (NPHW), and patient-facing text messages to enhance the CVD care.

Objective: To explore the barriers and enablers of the C-QIP strategy from the perspective of providers, health administrators, patients, and care givers in India.

Methods: We conducted a qualitative study using the consolidated framework for implementation research (CFIR) to understand the challenges and facilitators of implementing C-QIP strategy to enhance CVD care in the Indian context.

Syndemics and clinical science.

The theory of syndemics has received increasing attention in clinical medicine since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, due to the synergistic interactions of the disease with pre-existing political, structural, social and health conditions. In simple terms, syndemics are synergistically interacting epidemics that occur in a particular context with shared drivers. When policymakers ask why some communities have higher death rates from COVID-19 compared with other communities, those working from a syndemics framework argue that multiple factors synergistically work in tandem, and populations with the highest morbidity and mortality experience the greatest impact of these interactions.

Understanding the "Sometimes Masker": Political Orientation and Trust in the Media During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Objectives: The COVID-19 pandemic in the United States has brought to light the problematic way partisan politics interferes with public health prevention and control measures. This study aims to investigate how Americans responded to the novel coronavirus with respect to their sociopolitical identity and masking habits.

Study Design: This mixed-methods study incorporated three ethnographic projects and surveys together, from two rural areas (in Iowa and California) and one suburban community in California.

Development and validation of the Soweto Coping Scale: A mixed-methods, population-based study of adults living in Soweto, South Africa.

Mental health disorders are amongst the leading contributors to the burden of disease and need to be prioritised in policy making and program implementation. In the absence of mental healthcare, people often navigate their own social support and activate individual coping mechanisms to sustain their emotional well-being. Few South African studies conceptualise and evaluate the strategies people use to manage adverse situations in non-clinical samples.

Context, COVID-19 and comorbidities: exploring emergent directions in syndemics and HIV research.

Purpose Of Review: The purpose of this review is to identify themes across articles that aimed to explore HIV-related syndemics in 2020 and 2021 and to discuss their implications for research on syndemics.

Recent Findings: We identified 189 articles on syndemics between 2020 and 2021. Key themes across studies included COVID-19; mental health and psychosocial challenges; substance use; socio-structural factors; protective factors; and methodological approaches.

Social risks, economic dynamics and the local politics of COVID-19 prevention in Eldoret town, Kenya.

A steady and consistent national and local government leadership is crucial in times of crisis. The trust in government - which can be so fragile - was strong in Eldoret town, a large municipal in western Kenya widely known for ethnic conflicts. In our interviews with 20 business people and 30 community members from Eldoret town, we found that the trust built early in the pandemic was broken due to individual leaders who eventually dismissed public health promotion and engaged in politics and corruption of funds for COVID-19 relief.