Care delivery in the context of district mental healthcare plans in Ghana: a qualitative study exploring experiences of primary healthcare workers and service users.

Objective: To explore the perceptions and experiences of mental health service users and healthcare workers regarding the implementation of district mental healthcare plans (DMHPs) in three district demonstration sites in Ghana.

Design: The study employed a qualitative design using reflexive thematic analysis. Interview data were analysed by combining inductive and deductive approaches.

Inverting the deficit model in global mental health: An examination of strengths and assets of community mental health care in Ghana, India, Occupied Palestinian territories, and South Africa.

Global mental health [GMH] scholarship and practice has typically focused on the unmet needs and barriers to mental health in communities, developing biomedical and psychosocial interventions for integration into formal health care platforms in response. In this article, we analyse four diverse settings to disrupt the emphasises on health system weaknesses, treatment gaps and barriers which can perpetuate harmful hierarchies and colonial and medical assumptions, or a 'deficit model'. We draw on the experiential knowledge of community mental health practitioners and researchers working in Ghana, India, the Occupied Palestinian Territory and South Africa to describe key assets existing in 'informal' community mental health care systems and how these are shaped by socio-political contexts.

Mental health and disability research in Ghana: a rapid review.

The objective of this rapid review was to explore the current evidence base for mental health and disability research in Ghana. The PRISMA-ScR (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews) checklist was followed. Online databases were used to identify primary studies, systematic reviews, meta-analyses, rapid reviews, or guidelines published between 2010 and 2020.

Mutuality as a method: advancing a social paradigm for global mental health through mutual learning.

Purpose: Calls for "mutuality" in global mental health (GMH) aim to produce knowledge more equitably across epistemic and power differences. With funding, convening, and publishing power still concentrated in institutions in the global North, efforts to decolonize GMH emphasize the need for mutual learning instead of unidirectional knowledge transfers. This article reflects on mutuality as a concept and practice that engenders sustainable relations, conceptual innovation, and queries how epistemic power can be shared.

Identifying sensitive windows of prenatal household air pollution on birth weight and infant pneumonia risk to inform future interventions.

Background: Prenatal household air pollution impairs birth weight and increases pneumonia risk however time-varying associations have not been elucidated and may have implications for the timing of public health interventions.

Methods: The Ghana Randomized Air Pollution and Health Study (GRAPHS) enrolled 1,414 pregnant women from Kintampo, Ghana and measured personal carbon monoxide (CO) exposure four times over pregnancy. Birth weight was measured within 72-hours of birth.

Towards implementation of context-specific integrated district mental healthcare plans: A situation analysis of mental health services in five districts in Ghana.

Background: Access to quality mental health services in Ghana remains poor, yet little is known about the extent of the access gaps and provision of mental health services at the district level in Ghana. We aimed to conduct an analysis of mental health infrastructure and service provision in five districts in Ghana.

Methods: A cross-sectional situation analysis was conducted using a standardised tool to collect secondary healthcare data, supplemented by interviews with key informants, across five purposively selected districts in Ghana.

Prevalence of probable mental, neurological and substance use conditions and case detection at primary healthcare facilities across three districts in Ghana: findings from a cross-sectional health facility survey.

Background: Few studies have examined the prevalence of mental, neurological and substance use (MNS) conditions, case detection and treatment in primary healthcare in rural settings in Africa. We assessed prevalence and case detection at primary healthcare facilities in low-resource rural settings in Ghana.

Methods: A cross-sectional survey was conducted at the health facility level in three demonstration districts situated in Bongo (Upper East Region), Asunafo North (Ahafo Region) and Anloga (Volta Region) in Ghana.

Association between malaria and household air pollution interventions in a predominantly rural area of Ghana.

Background: Though anecdotal evidence suggests that smoke from HAP has a repellent effect on mosquitoes, very little work has been done to assess the effect of biomass smoke on malaria infection. The study, therefore, sought to investigate the hypothesis that interventions to reduce household biomass smoke may have an unintended consequence of increasing placental malaria or increase malaria infection in the first year of life.

Methods: This provides evidence from a randomized controlled trial among 1414 maternal-infant pairs in the Kintampo North and Kintampo South administrative areas of Ghana.

Using time-resolved monitor wearing data to study the effect of clean cooking interventions on personal air pollution exposures.

Background: Personal monitoring can estimate individuals' exposures to environmental pollutants; however, accuracy depends on consistent monitor wearing, which is under evaluated.

Objective: To study the association between device wearing and personal air pollution exposure.

Methods: Using personal device accelerometry data collected in the context of a randomized cooking intervention in Ghana with three study arms (control, improved biomass, and liquified petroleum gas (LPG) arms; N = 1414), we account for device wearing to infer parameters of PM and CO exposure.

Mental health and disability research priorities and capacity needs in Ghana: findings from a rapid review and research priority ranking survey.

Background: Identification of national research agendas for mental health and disability can be supported by well-designed research priority-setting studies. Few low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) have undertaken such studies.

Objective: To identify mental health and disability research priorities in Ghana.

Prediction of personal exposure to PM in mother-child pairs in rural Ghana.

Background: Air pollution epidemiological studies usually rely on estimates of long-term exposure to air pollutants, which are difficult to ascertain. This problem is accentuated in settings where sources of personal exposure differ from those of ambient concentrations, including household air pollution environments where cooking is an important source.

Objective: The objective of this study was to assess the feasibility of estimating usual exposure to PM based on short-term measurements.

Corrigendum to "Prenatal household air pollutant exposure is associated with reduced size and gestational age at birth among a cohort of Ghanaian infants" [Environ. Int. 155 (2021) 106659].

[This corrects the article PMC8628363.].

Prenatal and Postnatal Household Air Pollution Exposure and Infant Growth Trajectories: Evidence from a Rural Ghanaian Pregnancy Cohort.

Background: The exposure-response association between prenatal and postnatal household air pollution (HAP) and infant growth trajectories is unknown.

Objectives: To evaluate associations between prenatal and postnatal HAP exposure and stove interventions on growth trajectories over the first year of life.

Methods: The Ghana Randomized Air Pollution and Health Study enrolled pregnant women at gestation from Kintampo, Ghana, and randomized them to liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), improved biomass, or open fire (control) stoves.

The Mental Health Outcomes of Food Insecurity and Insufficiency in West Africa: A Systematic Narrative Review.

(1) Background: Food insufficiency is a global pandemic affecting many people, especially those residing in developing countries. African countries have been affected by food insufficiency, which is mostly caused by drought or wars. Famine or food insufficiency has been reported to have an impact on the psychological health and quality of life of people affected.

A cluster randomised trial of cookstove interventions to improve infant health in Ghana.

Introduction: Household air pollution from solid fuel combustion for cooking and heating is a leading cause of childhood morbidity and mortality worldwide. We hypothesised that clean cooking interventions delivered during pregnancy would improve child health.

Methods: We conducted a cluster randomised trial in rural Ghana to test whether providing pregnant women liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) cookstoves or improved biomass cookstoves would reduce personal carbon monoxide and fine particulate pollution exposure, increase birth weight and reduce physician-assessed severe pneumonia in the first 12 months of life, compared with control participants who continued to cook with traditional stoves.

Prenatal Household Air Pollution Exposure, Cord Blood Mononuclear Cell Telomere Length and Age Four Blood Pressure: Evidence from a Ghanaian Pregnancy Cohort.

Associations between prenatal household air pollution exposure (HAP), newborn telomere length and early childhood blood pressure are unknown. Methods: Pregnant women were randomized to liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) stove, improved biomass stove or control (traditional, open fire cook stove). HAP was measured by personal carbon monoxide (CO) ( = 97) and fine particulate matter (PM) ( = 60).

Prenatal and Postnatal Household Air Pollution Exposures and Pneumonia Risk: Evidence From the Ghana Randomized Air Pollution and Health Study.

Background: Nearly 40% of the world's population is exposed daily to household air pollution. The relative impact of prenatal and postnatal household air pollution exposure on early childhood pneumonia, a leading cause of mortality, is unknown.

Research Question: Are prenatal or postnatal household air pollution, or both, associated with pneumonia risk in the first year of life?

Study Design And Methods: The Ghana Randomized Air Pollution and Health Study enrolled 1,414 nonsmoking, pregnant women before 24 weeks' gestation with prospective follow-up to the child's age of 1 year.

Prenatal household air pollutant exposure is associated with reduced size and gestational age at birth among a cohort of Ghanaian infants.

Background: Low birth weight and prematurity are important risk factors for death and disability, and may be affected by prenatal exposure to household air pollution (HAP).

Methods: We investigate associations between maternal exposure to carbon monoxide (CO) during pregnancy and birth outcomes (birth weight, birth length, head circumference, gestational age, low birth weight, small for gestational age, and preterm birth) among 1288 live-born infants in the Ghana Randomized Air Pollution and Health Study (GRAPHS). We evaluate whether evidence of malaria during pregnancy, as determined by placental histopathology, modifies these associations.

Situational analysis of service provision for adolescents with mental and neurological disorders in in two districts of Ghana.

Background: Prevalence among adolescents with mental disorders are about 20% worldwide. In 2012, Ghana enacted the Mental Health Act, Act 846 to regulate mental health care, but did not include specific programmatic details of service provision nor any measurable indicators for adolescent mental health. Currently no service programmes focused on adolescents and no aggregated data exists documenting prevalence of mental and neurological disorders among adolescents.

The effect of clean cooking interventions on mother and child personal exposure to air pollution: results from the Ghana Randomized Air Pollution and Health Study (GRAPHS).

Background: Clean cooking interventions to reduce air pollution exposure from burning biomass for daily cooking and heating needs have the potential to reduce a large burden of disease globally.

Objective: The objective of this study is to evaluate the air pollution exposure impacts of a fan-assisted efficient biomass-burning cookstove and a liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) stove intervention in rural Ghana.

Methods: We randomized 1414 households in rural Ghana with pregnant mothers into a control arm (N = 526) or one of two clean cooking intervention arms: a fan-assisted efficient biomass-burning cookstove (N = 527) or an LPG stove and cylinder refills as needed (N = 361).

Determinants of contraceptive use among sexually active unmarried adolescent girls and young women aged 15-24 years in Ghana: a nationally representative cross-sectional study.

Objective: There is a decline in contraceptive use among sexually active unmarried young women in Ghana. This study assessed the prevalence of contraceptive knowledge and use, and the determinant of contraceptive use among sexually active unmarried young women in Ghana.

Design: This was a nationally representative cross-sectional survey, using data from the 2017 Ghana Maternal Health Survey.

Exposure to carbon monoxide and particulate matter among cassava grits processors in the middle belt of Ghana: a cross-sectional study.

Introduction: exposure to smoke from biomass combustion during economic activities is a major health risk. One of such commercial activities that use biomass fuel is gari (cassava grits) processing. Cassava grits is a staple food produced from grated and fermented cassava.

Time Use Implication of Clean Cookstoves in Rural Settings in Ghana: A Time Use Study.

Whilst the health benefit of using clean cookstoves and fuels is widely known, there is limited information on the non-health benefit of these stoves, especially in low-middle-income countries. This paper reports the time use implications of using clean cookstoves and fuels by comparing liquified petroleum gas (LPG), an improved biomass cookstove (BioLite), and traditional biomass cookstoves (three-stone fires) in Ghana. Using survey-based time diaries, information on all the activities undertaken by study participants during a 24-h was collected and analyzed.