A Mixed Methods Exploration of Young Women's Agency and Mental Health during COVID-19 in Low-Income Communities in Mumbai, India.

Introduction: Adolescent girls and young women (AGYW) in India face additional health inequities compared to their male peers, as gender norms constrain agency for prevention and self-care. The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and associated lockdowns deepened health inequities and often worsened mental health, but the impacts on agency are unclear. This exploratory sequential mixed methods paper examined mental health and COVID-19 elements that exacerbated or mitigated adverse consequences for AGYW in low-income communities in Mumbai.

Perioperative Process Mapping to Identify Inefficiencies at a Tertiary Hospital in Malawi.

Introduction: Same-day surgical case cancellation consumes resources, disrupts patient care, and has a global prevalence of 18%. A retrospective analysis found that 44% of scheduled elective surgeries were canceled at a public tertiary hospital in Lilongwe, Malawi. To better characterize these cancellations, this study defines a process map for surgical case completion and investigates hospital staff and patient perspectives on contributing factors and burdens of cancellation.

A Proposal of Utilizing Six Types of Involvement Model to Guide Kindergarten to 12th Grade School Parental Communication and Support During a Pandemic.

Background: Effective communication between schools and parents Is crucial for fostering understanding, trust, and collaboration to enhance educational outcomes and student well-being, especially during crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic. Moreover, the current level of communication between schools and families is frequently insufficient, exacerbating the difficulties in parental engagement, comprehension, and certain policy implementation. This deficiency becomes even more pronounced during crises due to the added stressors.

Integration of QTL and transcriptome approaches for the identification of genes involved in tomato response to nitrogen deficiency.

Optimizing plant nitrogen (N) usage and inhibiting N leaching loss in the soil-crop system is crucial to maintaining crop yield and reducing environmental pollution. This study aimed at identifying quantitative trait loci (QTLs) and differentially expressed genes (DEGs) between two N treatments in order to list candidate genes related to nitrogen-related contrasting traits in tomato varieties. We characterized a genetic diversity core-collection (CC) and a multi-parental advanced generation intercross (MAGIC) tomato population grown in a greenhouse under two nitrogen levels and assessed several N-related traits and mapped QTLs.

A social innovation to empower community-led monitoring and mobilization for HIV prevention in rural Kenya: experimenting to reduce the HIV prevention policy-implementation gap.

Introduction: Strong policy guidance has recently emerged identifying focal points at multiple levels and across sectors to end the persistent HIV pandemic and related inequities. Reducing the policy-implementation gap, as with the evidence-policy gap, requires strategic alignment between interventional research and policy realms. Global- and national-level HIV policy indicate a need for community-led efforts to reduce HIV stigma, and increase uptake of HIV prevention tools.

Assessing changes in adolescent girls' and young women's sexual and reproductive health service utilisation following a COVID-19 lockdown in eSwatini.

The effects of COVID-19-associated restrictions on youth sexual and reproductive health (SRH) care during the pandemic remain unclear, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. This study uses interrupted time series analyses to assess changes in SRH care utilisation (including visits for HIV testing and treatment, family planning, and antenatal care) adolescent girls' and young women's (AGYW; aged 15-24 years old) in eSwatini following COVID-19 lockdown beginning in March 2020. SRH utilisation data from 32 clinics in the Manzini region that remained open throughout the 2020 COVID-19 period were extracted from eSwatini's electronic health record system.

Genetic control of tomato fruit quality: from QTL mapping to Genome Wide Association studies and breeding.

Consumers began to complain about the taste of tomato varieties in the late 1990's. Although tomato taste is influenced by environmental and post-harvest conditions, varieties show a large diversity for fruit quality traits. We herein review our past and present research work intended to improve tomato fruit quality.

Implementation of a Hardware-Assisted Bluetooth-Based COVID-19 Tracking Device in a High School: Mixed Methods Study.

Background: Contact tracing is a vital public health tool used to prevent the spread of infectious diseases. However, traditional interview-format contact tracing (TCT) is labor-intensive and time-consuming and may be unsustainable for large-scale pandemics such as COVID-19.

Objective: In this study, we aimed to address the limitations of TCT.

School closures and reopenings during the COVID-19 pandemic: a scoping review protocol.

Objective: The objective of this scoping review is to provide an overview of existing studies and evidence on the impact of school closures and reopenings during the pandemic.

Introduction: The COVID-19 pandemic has necessitated widespread school closures, and reopening schools safely has a pivotal role in the well-being of children and teachers, SARS-CoV-2 transmission control and optimal societal functioning. Widespread school closures in response to the COVID-19 pandemic have caused adverse effects on the education, physical health and mental well-being of children.

Systematic Literature Review of Pediatric Male and Female Genital Hair Thread Tourniquet Syndrome.

Objective: The aim of this study was to describe genital hair thread tourniquet syndrome (HTTS) and its treatment by pediatric and adolescent health care providers through a systematic literature review.

Methods: We performed a systematic literature review on pediatric male and female genital HTTS. Studies were included if they involved genital HTTS in males or females 21 years and younger and were published in English.

Leveraging HIV Care Infrastructures for Integrated Chronic Disease and Pandemic Management in Sub-Saharan Africa.

In Sub-Saharan Africa, communicable and other tropical infectious diseases remain major challenges apart from the continuing HIV/AIDS epidemic. Recognition and prevalence of non-communicable diseases have risen throughout Africa, and the reimagining of healthcare delivery is needed to support communities coping with not only with HIV, tuberculosis, and COVID-19, but also cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and depression. Many non-communicable diseases can be prevented or treated with low-cost interventions, yet implementation of such care has been limited in the region.

Girl Champ in eSwatini: A Strategic Marketing Campaign to Promote Demand for Sexual and Reproductive Health Services Among Young Women.

Efforts to engage adolescent girls and young women (AGYW) in HIV services have struggled, in part, due to limited awareness of services and stigma. Strategic marketing is a promising approach, but the impact on youth behavior change is unclear. We report findings from a mixed methods evaluation of the Girl Champ campaign, designed to generate demand for sexual and reproductive services among AGYW, and piloted in three clinics in the Manzini region of eSwatini.

Friends as Informal Educators: The Role of Peer Relationships in Promotion of Sexual Health Services among College Students.

This ethnographic study of one United States university's sexual health resources explores the role of peer relationships in sexual health promotion to understand how these relationships shaped students' interactions with campus sexual health resources. Through analysis of seventeen semi-structured interviews with students, five policy interviews with providers and university personnel, and participant-observation of peer health educator training, the authors examine how trust in peer relationships can serve as a form of social capital to influence sexual health information sharing. The article introduces the term "peer administrator" to describe student actors who sit at the intersection of friend and official resource and explores the importance of these mentoring relationships for sexual health promotion.

Supporting Patient-centered Communication on Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health-Perspectives to Build an Appointment Planning Tool.

Study Objective: Input from adolescents and healthcare providers is needed to develop electronic tools that can support patient-centered sexual and reproductive (SRH) care. This study explores facilitators and barriers to patient-centered communication in the context of developing an electronic appointment planning tool to promote SRH communication in clinic settings.

Design: In-depth interviews were conducted to explore what constitutes adolescent-friendly SRH care and communication, as well as on the design of the appointment planning tool.

Reopening Schools After a Novel Coronavirus Surge.

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic shook the world in ways not seen since the pandemic influenza of 1918-1919. As of late August 2020, over 25 million persons had been infected, and we will see the global death toll exceed one million by the end of 2020. Both are minimum estimates.

Project Last Mile and the development of the Girl Champ brand in eSwatini: engaging the private sector to promote uptake of health services among adolescent girls and young women.

In eSwatini and across sub-Saharan Africa, adolescent girls and young women (AGYW) are at significantly higher risk of HIV infection and poorer sexual and reproductive health (SRH) than their male counterparts. AGYW demonstrate low demand for SRH services, further contributing to poor outcomes. Strategic marketing approaches, including those used by multinational corporations, have potential to support demand creation for SRH services among AGYW, but there is limited empirical evidence on the direct application of private-sector strategic marketing approaches in this context.

Correction to: Integrating and Interpreting Findings from the Latest Treatment as Prevention Trials.

The original version of this review article unfortunately contained a mistake in the category section. The Section Editor was inadvertently captured as "E Geng" instead of "SH Vermund".

Integrating and Interpreting Findings from the Latest Treatment as Prevention Trials.

Purpose Of Review: In 2018-2019, studies were published assessing the effectiveness of reducing HIV incidence by expanding HIV testing, linkage to HIV treatment, and assistance to persons living with HIV to adhere to their medications (the "90-90-90" strategy). These tests of "treatment as prevention" (TasP) had complex results.

Recent Findings: The TasP/ANRS 12249 study in South Africa, the SEARCH study in Kenya and Uganda, and one comparison (arms A to C) of the HPTN 071 (PopART) study in South Africa and Zambia did not demonstrate a community impact on HIV incidence.

Measuring child survival for the Millennium Development Goals in Africa: what have we learned and what more is needed to evaluate the Sustainable Development Goals?

Reducing child mortality is a key global health challenge. We examined reasons for greater or lesser success in meeting under-five mortality rate reductions, i.e.

Treatment as Prevention: Concepts and Challenges for Reducing HIV Incidence.

Background: Four of the largest HIV prevention trials have been conducted in sub-Saharan Africa, enrolling hundreds of thousands of participants in catchment areas of millions of people. The trials have focused on community-level interventions to increase diagnosis and initiation of antiretroviral therapy (ART) to improve health and reduce HIV transmission. Universal test-and-treat strategies are deployed to achieve viral suppression thereby reducing risk to uninfected persons, known as treatment as prevention (TasP).

Plasma Membrane-Associated Receptor-like Kinases Relocalize to Plasmodesmata in Response to Osmotic Stress.

Plasmodesmata act as key elements in intercellular communication, coordinating processes related to plant growth, development, and responses to environmental stresses. While many of the developmental, biotic, and abiotic signals are primarily perceived at the plasma membrane (PM) by receptor proteins, plasmodesmata also cluster receptor-like activities; whether these two pathways interact is currently unknown. Here, we show that specific PM-located Leu-rich-repeat receptor-like-kinases, Qiān Shŏu kinase (QSK1) and inflorescence meristem kinase2, which under optimal growth conditions are absent from plasmodesmata, rapidly relocate and cluster to the pores in response to osmotic stress.

Multiple C2 domains and transmembrane region proteins (MCTPs) tether membranes at plasmodesmata.

In eukaryotes, membrane contact sites (MCS) allow direct communication between organelles. Plants have evolved a unique type of MCS, inside intercellular pores, the plasmodesmata, where endoplasmic reticulum (ER)-plasma membrane (PM) contacts coincide with regulation of cell-to-cell signalling. The molecular mechanism and function of membrane tethering within plasmodesmata remain unknown.

Promoting progress in child survival across four African countries: the role of strong health governance and leadership in maternal, neonatal and child health.

Despite numerous international and national efforts, only 12 countries in the World Health Organization's African Region met the Millennium Development Goal #4 (MDG#4) to reduce under-five mortality by two-thirds by 2015. Given the variability across sub-Saharan Africa, a four-country study was undertaken to examine barriers and facilitators of child survival prior to 2015. Liberia and Zambia were chosen to represent countries making substantial progress towards MDG#4, while Kenya and Zimbabwe represented countries making less progress.

Depression Among Alcohol Consuming, HIV Positive Men on ART Treatment in India.

Depression, as well as other psychosocial factors, remains largely unaddressed among people living with HIV (PLHIV) in low and middle-income countries. Depression is a common occurrence among PLHIV and is elevated in those who consume alcohol. This paper will document the presence of depressive symptoms in alcohol-consuming male PLHIV receiving antiretroviral treatment (ART) in India.