The impact of a customized aesthetic prosthetic leg cover on social interaction cues and attitudes in the general UK population: Two experimental studies.

Objectives: To explore the impact of an aesthetic prosthetic leg cover on attitudes toward individuals with lower-limb amputation and associated social interaction cues among the general UK population.

Study Design: Two novel experimental methodologies.

Methods: In study 1, participants (n = 188) viewed 1 of 3 images of an individual: (1) wearing a traditional stem prosthetic, (2) wearing an aesthetic leg cover, or (3) as a nonamputee.

Comparative sanitation data from high-frequency phone surveys across 3 countries.

With less than half of the world's urban population having safely managed sanitation due to the high cost and difficulty of building sewers and treatment plants, many rely on off-grid options like pit latrines and septic tanks, which are hard to empty and often lead to illegal waste dumping; this research focuses on container-based sanitation (CBS) as an emerging off-grid solution. Off-grid sanitation refers to waste management systems that operate independently of centralized infrastructure and CBS is a service providing toilets that collect human waste in sealable containers, which are regularly emptied and safely disposed of. These data relate to a project investigating CBS in Kenya, Peru, and South Africa, focusing on how different user groups access and utilize sanitation - contrasting CBS with other types.

Centring participant experience: a realist evaluation of a menstruator-friendly facility design project in a refugee settlement, Lebanon.

Introduction: Menstrual health in humanitarian contexts is a neglected topic. Its taboo nature presents difficulties for participants in menstrual health projects in these particularly challenging settings. Namely, their experiences may be concealed or overlooked in projects that are typically outcome focused.

Gaps in humanitarian WASH response: perspectives from people affected by crises, practitioners, global responders, and the literature.

Water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) interventions prevent and control disease in humanitarian response. To inform future funding and policy priorities, WASH 'gaps' were identified via 220 focus-group discussions with people affected by crises and WASH practitioners, 246 global survey respondents, and 614 documents. After extraction, 2,888 (48 per cent) gaps from direct feedback and 3,151 (52 per cent) from literature were categorised.

Surveyed from Afar: Household water security, emotional well-being, and the reliability of water supply in the Ethiopian lowlands.

Almost half of the world's population is expected to experience water stress in their daily lives by 2050. The impacts of water scarcity on physical and psychosocial health are especially felt in arid regions of Ethiopia where semi-nomadic pastoralist populations are heavily reliant on groundwater for domestic and livestock needs. However, functional water supply infrastructure and reliable service delivery remain a challenge.

Football and Dementia: Understanding the Link.

Football, also known as soccer or association football, is popular but has a potential link with dementia developing in retired players. The FA and soccer regulators in the USA have imposed guidelines limiting players exposure to heading, despite controversy whether this dementia is caused by heading the ball, a form of mild repetitive head injury (RHI), over many years. Substantial data exist showing that many ex-North American Football players develop a specific neurodegenerative disease: chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), the neuropathological disorder of boxers.

A randomised controlled feasibility trial of a BabyWASH household playspace: The CAMPI study.

Background: Water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) interventions should support infant growth but trial results are inconsistent. Frequently, interventions do not consider behaviours or transmission pathways specific to age. A household playspace (HPS) is one intervention component which may block faecal-oral transmission.

Multi-Sectoral Participatory Design of a BabyWASH Playspace for Rural Ethiopian Households.

Growing evidence suggests current water, sanitation, and hygiene interventions do not improve domestic hygiene sufficiently to improve infant health, nor consider the age-specific behaviors which increase infection risk. A household playspace (HPS) is described as one critical intervention to reduce direct fecal-oral transmission within formative growth periods. This article details both the design and development (materials and methods), and testing (results) of a HPS for rural Ethiopian households.

A Qualitative Study of NIMBYism for Waste in Smaller Urban Areas of a Low-Income Country, Mzuzu, Malawi.

When waste management infrastructure is built, there can be resistance from the local affected populations, often termed the Not in My Backyard (NIMBY) phenomenon. This study aims to understand the forms of resistance that may develop in such contexts, focusing on 2 solid waste and 1 liquid waste management site within Mzuzu City, Malawi. At the newest solid waste site, community resistance had grown to the extent that the site was reportedly destroyed by the local community.

Evaluating the circular economy for sanitation: Findings from a multi-case approach.

Addressing the lack of sanitation globally is a major global challenge with 700 million people still practicing open defecation. Circular Economy (CE) in the context of sanitation focuses on the whole sanitation chain which includes the provision of toilets, the collection of waste, treatment and transformation into sanitation-derived products including fertiliser, fuel and clean water. After a qualitative study from five case studies across India, covering different treatment technologies, waste-derived products, markets and contexts; this research identifies the main barriers and enablers for circular sanitation business models to succeed.

Risk factors and transmission pathways associated with infant Campylobacter spp. prevalence and malnutrition: A formative study in rural Ethiopia.

Early infection from enteropathogens is recognised as both a cause and effect of infant malnutrition. Specifically, evidence demonstrates associations between growth shortfalls and Campylobacter infection, endemic across low-income settings, with poultry a major source. Whilst improvements in water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) should reduce pathogen transmission, interventions show inconsistent effects on infant health.

Association between water and sanitation service levels and soil-transmitted helminth infection risk factors: a cross-sectional study in rural Rwanda.

Background: Soil-transmitted helminth (STH) infections are one of the most prevalent neglected tropical diseases in the world. Drug treatment is the preferred method for infection control yet reinfection occurs rapidly, so water and sanitation represent important complementary barriers to transmission.

Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted to observe STH risk factors in rural Rwandan households in relation to the Sustainable Development Goal for water and sanitation service levels.

Do domestic animals contribute to bacterial contamination of infant transmission pathways? Formative evidence from Ethiopia.

Child stunting is associated with poor water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH), partly due to the effect of infection on intestinal nutrient absorption. WASH interventions, however, show little effect on growth. A hypothesis is that bacterial contamination of hands and floors from domestic animals and their faeces, and subsequent ingestion via infant hand-to-mouth behaviours, may explain this.

A framework for targeting water, sanitation and hygiene interventions in pastoralist populations in the Afar region of Ethiopia.

Globally, many populations face structural and environmental barriers to access safe water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) services. Among these populations are many of the 200 million pastoralists whose livelihood patterns and extreme environmental settings challenge conventional WASH programming approaches. In this paper, we studied the Afar pastoralists in Ethiopia to identify WASH interventions that can mostly alleviate public health risks, within the population's structural and environmental living constraints.

Environmental enteric dysfunction and child stunting.

In 2017, an estimated 1 in every 4 (23%) children aged < 5 years were stunted worldwide. With slow progress in stunting reduction in many regions and the realization that a large proportion of stunting is not due to insufficient diet or diarrhea alone, it remains that other factors must explain continued growth faltering. Environmental enteric dysfunction (EED), a subclinical state of intestinal inflammation, can occur in infants across the developing world and is proposed as an immediate causal factor connecting poor sanitation and stunting.

Necessary but not sufficient? Engaging young people in the development of an avatar-based online intervention designed to provide psychosocial support to young people affected by their own or a family member's cancer diagnosis.

Objective: This study discusses the challenges and successes of engaging young people in a project aimed at developing an online counselling intervention for young people affected by cancer.

Context: For younger people with a diagnosis of cancer or who are caring for someone with cancer, the psychosocial consequences can create significant challenges for their social and educational development. Whilst young people have been shown to be reluctant to make use of traditional face-to-face counselling, research is beginning to suggest that effective therapeutic relationships can be formed with young people online.