Gestational Diabetes Mellitus (GDM) is a major public health issue and a threat to the well-being of a mother and her offspring. As a growing concern in sub-Saharan Africa, this paper explores the ...knowledge, attitude, and practices of healthy expectant mothers towards GDM, and the content of GDM information delivered by prenatal nurses during Antenatal Clinic (ANC) in Warri, Delta State, Nigeria. Semi-structured telephone interviews were employed with 22 participants comprising 20 pregnant women and 2 antenatal nurses. The results reveal that majority of the pregnant women were unaware of GDM as a particular health condition during pregnancy that poses a risk to both maternal and infant health and could lead to a long-term risk of developing the chronic condition of Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus (T2DM). This low level of awareness was attributed to a lack of adequate information during prenatal clinic sessions. The findings from this study emphasize the need to enhance the quality of public health education offered to pregnant women during pre and antenatal clinical services emphasizing GDM as part of the overall global agenda on promoting maternal and infant health.
PurposeOpen and distance e-learning (ODeL) practices have substantial contributions to make in achieving societal development goals. The challenge however remains with enhancing skilling, training ...and educating professionals who will contribute to this progress. The purpose of this paper is to illustrate how transformative education and training in global health can be undertaken through ODeL in increasing the quality, quantity and relevance of health professional education and training.Design/methodology/approachThis paper is based on a descriptive qualitative case study of the International Health and Development Course offered by the University of the Philippines Open University and is thus limited in its scope from other courses in the program.FindingsTransformative education and training through ODeL has the potential of increasing the quality, quantity and relevance of health professionals training. However more critical assessment of transformative learning outcomes is needed via rigorous methods of objectifying such outcomes. Achieving transformative health education and training requires rigorous engagement in constructivist-oriented experiential learning that allow learners to be accustomed to significant interactions achieved by involvement in problem-based methods accomplished through small group e-tivities in order to demonstrate applicability in the real work context.Originality/valueThe outcome of this paper is relevant to institutions in Asia that offer ODeL-based global health programs through open knowledge systems in order to produce graduates who are more responsive to the evolving health needs amid twenty-first century global health challenges.
The sportification of kabaddi, a traditional Indian game, is manifested through the organization of certain rules and establishment of institutions that have enhanced its appeal as a global sport for ...both men’s and women’s teams in three forms of the game: the standard style, beach kabaddi, and circle-style kabaddi. The theory of sportification assumes that all sports tend to develop along similar patterns toward increased specialization, standardization, and rationalization. However, the sportification and internationalization of kabaddi can be conceived as a hybridization of both Western and non-Western ideologies through processes aimed at replacing old forms of discourse with new ones. The focus of this article, therefore, is to situate kabaddi’s sportification and internationalization, from a sociological perspective, within key conceptions of codification, rationalization, and institutionalization. The article significantly draws on the works of Weber, Marx, and Elias, and ends with a call for expansion of sociological inquiry in the study of traditional games which has, until now, largely been informed by discourses from sports science.
In resource-limited settings, national tuberculosis (TB) control programmes are highly dependent on external funds, which may pose a challenge to programme sustainability. There is a recognized need ...for developing guidance around sustainable programming of current TB control initiatives.
The aim of this study was to explore public health practitioners' perspectives on the sustainability of TB control initiatives in Pakistan at the primary health care (PHC) level.
Guided by an interpretive epistemology, online in-depth interviews were conducted with 10 public health practitioners who had experience as resource planners in the TB control programme in Pakistan. Thematic content analysis was employed to the textual data as the analytical approach.
Three themes were inductively derived from the thematic analysis: community involvement, stakeholder engagement and efficient use of the PHC system. Community involvement was a determinant in sustaining TB control initiatives. This was attributed to the nature of the disease and prevalent health seeking behaviour. Stakeholder engagement was associated with funding arrangements between public and private partners and considered important in how new initiatives can be made part of the routine structure. Overall, having an efficient PHC system was deemed critical in sustaining current TB control initiatives at the PHC level in Pakistan.
Fostering an enabling operational environment through regulations, supporting the utilization of existing resources, expanding the network of providers, inclusive planning, increasing spending on research and cost-effective testing are pivotal for sustaining the TB control initiatives.
Globally, the prevalence of diabetes has risen significantly by 62% over the last ten years. A complication of unmanaged diabetes is diabetic foot ulcer (DFU), which adversely affects the quality of ...life of individuals with diabetes and inflicts a huge economic burden on the family, government, and health care services. However, this complication is preventable with adequate patient knowledge and practice regarding DFU and foot care. The present study was aimed at assessing the knowledge, attitude, and practice of adults with diabetes on foot ulcers and foot care in Tobago using a qualitative exploratory design. Purposeful sampling technique was used to recruit 20 participants from the lifestyle and diabetes foot clinics of Scarborough Health Centre, Tobago. Telephone interviews were conducted with the use of a semi-structured interview guide. The data obtained from participants were analyzed using thematic content analysis. Four major themes, namely foot ulcer problems, participants’ knowledge on DFU, knowledge on foot care, and practice and attitude of foot care, emerged from the study. The findings from the study revealed that the majority of participants had poor knowledge regarding DFU but exhibited awareness about foot care, especially on foot cleaning and inspection, preventing irritation after washing, appropriate footwear, and not walking barefooted. The participants had good attitudes and practices of foot care despite their poor knowledge of DFU. However, participants reported inadequate health education on DFU and foot care from healthcare personnel. There should be improved health education, information, and communication on DFU and foot care centred and tailored to the understanding of people living with diabetes. This will prevent DFU and reduce the mortality arising from this complication, which is a major target of the sustainable development goals (SDG) in mitigating the burden of non-communicable diseases (NCD) such as diabetes.
Sport, and football in particular, constitutes one of the most dynamic, sociologically illuminating domains of globalization. The Philippines has witnessed an upsurge of interest in the 'beautiful ...game', thanks in large part to the relative success and phenomenal popularity of the national men's soccer team, the Azkals. The effect of this phenomenon has placed the country on the global radar, in particular catching the attention of hopeful players. In spite of various risks, a number of African soccer players continue to find their way into the country in the hope of a career when such had not seemed possible at home or in Europe. This paper outlines one of the trends characteristic of the modern football industry - that of African football labour migration - its shift towards the Asian pivot and related challenges which are becoming defining features of soccer in the domestic top-tier league in the Philippines.
In 2010, soccer scaled new heights in the archipelago nation of the Philippines, as the sport firmly re-established a following in the otherwise basketball-crazy country. The Azkals - the moniker ...given to the national men's soccer team - fashioned a historic achievement at the regional AFF Suzuki Cup in 2010 in generating a soccer frenzy in the Philippines, a mania labelled the 'Azkals Fever', which increased consciousness of the sport in the country. Based entirely on content analysis of both print and electronic literature over a two-year period (2010-2012), this paper highlights how the 'Azkals Fever' phenomenon has come to redefine the country's historiography. Given the lack of scholarly studies on soccer in the Philippines, this paper argues for a research agenda on the sport - a position that is in agreement with Ben-Porat's (2000) suggestion that the history of sport is very much the history of the society in which it is engulfed.
Following the outbreak of COVID-19 in the Philippines, resources for reproductive health were diverted to prioritize addressing the impact of inequities among vulnerable and marginalized groups in ...the country. Based on a systematic review of the literature, this article unravels intersections of Filipina women’s reproductive oppression, which have come to play in the current COVID-19 crisis in the country. The article draws from Foucauldian, feminist, and critical theories, arguing for praxis of reproductive justice in the Philippines by continuously employing agency against reproductive oppression in moments of crisis, including disease pandemics, and constantly contesting hegemonic discourses and ideologies on reproductive health and overall women’s rights.
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