The MOMENTUM study: Putting the 'Three Delays' to work to evaluate access to emergency obstetric and neonatal care in a remote island community in Western Kenya.

Despite worldwide improvements in maternal and infant mortality, mothers and babies in remote, low-resource communities remain disproportionately vulnerable to adverse health outcomes. In these settings, delays in accessing emergency care are a major driver of poor outcomes. The 'Three Delays' model is now widely utilised to conceptualise these delays.

Rethinking our Rigor Mortis: Creating space for more adaptive and inclusive truth-seeking in community-based global health research in Kenya.

As global health researchers, we have long embraced the conviction that the answers to complex problems of poverty and disease will reveal themselves if only we apply enough scientific rigor. Yet, at the community level, our group of American and Kenyan investigators has begun to question whether our veneration of is itself contributing to the intractability of certain types of global health problems. Here, we illustrate examples from our experience among the remote island communities of Lake Victoria, Kenya, and join a chorus of emerging voices, to examine how our culture of control as global health scientists may marginalise truth-seekers and change-makers within communities we seek to serve.

"Wan Kanyakla" (We are together): Community transformations in Kenya following a social network intervention for HIV care.

Background: In sub-Saharan Africa, failure to initiate and sustain HIV treatment contributes to significant health, psychosocial, and economic impacts that burden not only infected individuals but diverse members of their social networks. Yet, due to intense stigma, the responsibility for managing lifelong HIV treatment rests solely, and often secretly, with infected individuals. We introduce the concept of "HIV risk induction" to suggest that social networks of infected individuals share a vested interest in improving long-term engagement with HIV care, and may represent an underutilized resource for improving HIV/AIDS outcomes within high prevalence populations.

Around the Table: Food Insecurity, Socioeconomic Status, and Instrumental Social Support among Women Living in a Rural Kenyan Island Community.

The objective of this study was to investigate the relationship among socioeconomic status, social support, and food insecurity in a rural Kenyan island community. A cross-sectional random sample of 111 female heads of households representing 583 household members were surveyed in Mfangano Island, Kenya from August to October 2010 using adaptations of the Household Food Insecurity Access Scale and the Medical Outcomes Study Social Support Survey. In multiple linear regression models, less instrumental social support, defined as concrete direct ways people help others (B = -0.

Fishing for Food? Analyzing links between fishing livelihoods and food security around Lake Victoria, Kenya.

Food-producing livelihoods have the potential to improve food security and nutrition through direct consumption or indirectly through income. To better understand these pathways, we examined if fishing households ate more fish and had higher food security than non-fishing households around Lake Victoria, Kenya. In 2010, we randomly sampled 111 households containing 583 individuals for a cross-sectional household survey in a rural fishing community.

Antiretroviral concentrations in small hair samples as a feasible marker of adherence in rural Kenya.

Antiretroviral hair levels objectively quantify drug exposure over time and predict virologic responses. We assessed the acceptability and feasibility of collecting small hair samples in a rural Kenyan cohort. Ninety-five percentage of participants (354/373) donated hair.