Community engagement processes in low- and middle-income countries health research settings: a systematic review of the literature.

Background: Community Engagement is an important ethical imperative in research. Although substantial research emphasizes its real value and strategic importance, much of the available literature focuses primarily on the success of community participation, with little emphasis given to specific community engagement processes, mechanisms and strategies in relation to intended outcomes in research environments. The systematic literature review's objective was to explore the nature of community engagement processes, strategies and approaches in health research settings in low- and middle-income countries.

The Impact of Targeted Treatment and Mass Drug Administration Delivery Strategies on the Prevalence and Intensity of Schistosomiasis in School Aged Children in Africa: A Systematic Review.

Schistosomiasis is a public health problem in more than 78 countries in the world. The disease is most prevalent among children than adults due to their high exposure to infectious water sources. Various interventions such as mass drug administration (MDA), snail control, safe water provision and health education have been implemented independently or jointly to control, reduce and ultimately eliminate Schistosomiasis.

Community Health Worker programmes' integration into national health systems: Scoping review.

Background: Community health worker (CHW) programmes, when adequately integrated into mainstream health systems, can provide a viable, affordable and sustainable path to strengthened health systems that better meets demands for improved child health, especially in resource-constrained settings. However, studies that report on how CHW programmes are integrated into respective health systems in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) are missing.

Aim: This review presents evidence on CHW programmes' integration into National Health Systems for improved health outcomes in SSA.

Health systems strengthening through policy-level integration of community health worker programs into national health systems for improved health outcomes - scorecard metrics validation: A bifactor structural equation model approach.

Background: Subsequent to the demonstrated potential of community health workers (CHWs) in strengthening health systems to improve health outcomes, recent literature has defined context and guidelines for integrating CHW programs into mainstream health systems. However, quantitative measures for assessing the extent of CHW program integration into national health systems need to be developed. The purpose of this study was to validate a newly developed scale, Community Health Worker Program Integration Scorecard Metrics (CHWP-ISM), for assessing the degree of integration of CHW programs into national health systems in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA).

Modeling factors critical for implementation of precision medicine at health systems-level: an IRT approach.

Background: Through recent advances in omics technologies, precision medicine (PM) promises to fundamentally change the way we approach health, disease and illness. Imperative applications of omics-based biomarkers are gradually moving from research to clinical settings, with huge long-term clinical and public health implications. Whereas much of research in PM is mainly focused on basic biomedical discoveries, currently there is little research on the clinical implementation of omics biomarkers, especially at health systems level.

Scorecard metrics for assessing the extent of integration of community health worker programmes into national health systems.

Background: The effectiveness of community health workers (CHWs) in delivering community-based preventive services is often curtailed by inadequate or complete lack of integration of the CHW programmes into national health systems. Although literature has defined the context and guidelines for integrating CHW programmes into health systems, indicators to quantitatively assess the extent of integration are inadequately addressed.

Aim: This article presents an integration scale - CHW Programme Integration Scorecard Metrics (CHWP-ISM) - for measuring the extent of CHW programme integration into national health systems.

Challenges and Opportunities Presented by Current Techniques for Detecting Schistosome Infections in Intermediate Host Snails: A Scoping Review.

Schistosomiasis, a neglected tropical disease (NTD), causes morbidity and mortality in over 250 million people globally. And 700 million people are at risk of contracting it. It is caused by a parasite of the genus .

The mediating effects of public genomic knowledge in precision medicine implementation: A structural equation model approach.

Precision medicine emphasizes predictive, preventive and personalized treatment on the basis of information gleaned from personal genetic and environmental data. Its implementation at health systems level is regarded as multifactorial, involving variables associated with omics technologies, public genomic awareness and adoption tendencies for new medical technologies. However, interrelationships of the various factors and their synergy has not been sufficiently quantified.

Leveraging implementation science to improve implementation outcomes in precision medicine.

Background And Purpose: Introduction of omics technologies in clinical practice means increased use of validated biomarkers, through precision medicine (PM). Although implementation science (IS) affords an array of theoretical approaches that can potentially explain PM intervention uptake, their relevance and applicability in PM implementation has not been empirically tested. This article identifies and examines existing implementation frameworks for their applicability in PM, demonstrating how different IS theories can be used to generate testable implementation hypotheses in PM.

Highlights of the 3rd ISCB Africa Student Council Symposium 2019 in Ghana.

The article elaborates on the program highlights of the 3rd African Student Council Symposium 2019. The one-day symposium was held in Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Ghana, on 11 November 2019 during the 6th joint international bioinformatics conference of the ISCB and ASBCB. It consisted of three sessions that included keynote talks by Prof Christine Orengo and Dr.

Current Affairs of Microbial Genome-Wide Association Studies: Approaches, Bottlenecks and Analytical Pitfalls.

Microbial genome-wide association studies (mGWAS) are a new and exciting research field that is adapting human GWAS methods to understand how variations in microbial genomes affect host or pathogen phenotypes, such as drug resistance, virulence, host specificity and prognosis. Several computational tools and methods have been developed or adapted from human GWAS to facilitate the discovery of novel mutations and structural variations that are associated with the phenotypes of interest. However, no comprehensive, end-to-end, user-friendly tool is currently available.

Ethical issues associated with medical tourism in Africa.

Global disparities in medical technologies, laws, economic inequities, and social-cultural differences drive medical tourism (MT), the practice of travelling to consume healthcare that is either too delayed, unavailable, unaffordable or legally proscribed at home. Africa is simultaneously a source and destination for MT. MT however, presents a new and challenging health ethics frontier, being largely unregulated and characterized by policy contradictions, minority discrimination and conflict of interest among role-players.

Role, structure and effects of medical tourism in Africa: a systematic scoping review protocol.

Introduction: Some patients travel out of, while others come into Africa for medical care through a growing global phenomenon referred to as medical tourism (MT): the travel in search of medical care that is either unavailable, unaffordable or proscribed at home healthcare systems. While some castigate MT as promoting healthcare inequity, others endorse it as a revenue generator, promising local healthcare system strengthening. Currently, however, the understanding of this component of healthcare in Africa is inadequate.