Faith and health

OBJECTIVE: Lack of access to essential medicines negatively impacts on the quality of healthcare delivery and increases morbidity and mortality, especially to the vulnerable pediatric population. We assessed the availability, pricing, and affordability of pediatric formulations in Malawi. METHODOLOGY: The study was conducted in 76 health facilities (public, faith-based and private pharmacies, and clinics) from the northern and southern regions of Malawi from March to May 2023...

Explainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI) techniques generate explanations for predictions from AI models. These explanations can be evaluated for (i) faithfulness to the prediction, i.e., its correctness about the reasons for prediction, and (ii) usefulness to the user. While there are metrics to evaluate faithfulness, to our knowledge, there are no automated metrics to evaluate the usefulness of explanations in the clinical context. Our objective is to develop a new metric to evaluate usefulness of AI explanations to clinicians...

People with mental illness are over-represented in the U.S. criminal legal system. Jail presents an optimal opportunity to provide needed mental health care as the entry point to corrections. However, there is a lack of programming available in jails, which may be partly due to limited understanding of how to successfully implement interventions in this complex setting. We implemented a nine-session psychotherapeutic intervention for people with serious mental illness in a county jail. As part of a larger implementation-effectiveness hybrid study, we gathered mixed-methods data from stakeholders (treatment recipients and jail administrators) on the feasibility and acceptability of the intervention's implementation...

BACKGROUND: Food insecurity (FI) is a disturbance of eating patterns due to lack of resources, preventing consistent access to healthy foods. FI negatively impacts health outcomes and increases care cost. OBJECTIVES: The primary objective was to (a) explore patient willingness to screen with the two-question Hunger Vital SignTM tool and (b) accept education regarding food assistance programs (FAP) at their community pharmacy. The secondary objective was to gauge pharmacy personnel's comfort with utilizing the screener and providing education...

OBJECTIVES: Meeting the needs of people accessing healthcare from ethnic minority (EM) groups is of great importance. An insight into their experience is needed to improve healthcare providers' ability to align their support with the perspectives and needs of families. This review provides insight into how families from EM backgrounds experience children's palliative care (CPC) by answering the question, "What are the experiences of EM families of children's palliative care across developed countries?" METHODS: A systematic search of articles from 6 databases (Scopus, Medline, Web of Science, APA PsycINFO, CINAHL, and Global Health) with no limit to the date of publication...

OBJECTIVE: This study explored faith leaders' perspectives on the COVID-19 vaccine and their role in building COVID-19 vaccine trust in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. DESIGN: A qualitative study with in-depth interviews and thematic analysis was conducted. PARTICIPANTS: Twenty-one faith leaders from the seven religious groups represented in the Inter-Religious Council of Ethiopia participated in the study. SETTING: The study was conducted in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia...

BACKGROUND: Improving access to mental health data to accelerate research and improve mental health outcomes is a potentially achievable goal given the substantial data that can now be collected from mobile devices. Smartphones can provide a useful mechanism for collecting mental health data from young people, especially as their use is relatively ubiquitous in high-resource settings such as the United Kingdom and they have a high capacity to collect active and passive data. This raises the interesting opportunity to establish a large bank of mental health data from young people that could be accessed by researchers worldwide, but it is important to clarify how to ensure that this is done in an appropriate manner aligned with the values of young people...

BACKGROUND: Hospital-based residential aged-care support service teams typically consist of doctors and nurses who provide hospital substitutive care to aged-care residents. There is limited literature evaluating the pharmacist's role in such aged-care support teams. OBJECTIVE: To analyse the effect of residential aged-care support service pharmacist-led medication reviews on polypharmacy, drug burden index, potentially inappropriate medications, and potential prescribing omissions for aged-care residents...

Cancer screening behaviors in Muslims are under-researched, and there is limited data on how it relates to their unique cultural and religious beliefs. We assessed cancer prevention and screening-related health needs in the Washington DC area. We developed the needs assessment questionnaires and recruitment strategy in collaboration with key faith leaders from four mosques in our catchment area. A total of 203 participants were recruited through community outreach and engagement approaches and were included in the discussion when developing the needs assessment to ensure questions were religiously and culturally sensitive...

BACKGROUND: Malaria remains a major global health priority, and monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) are emerging as potential new tools to support efforts to control the disease. Recent data suggest that Fc-dependent mechanisms of immunity are important mediators of protection against the blood stages of the infection, but few studies have investigated this in the context of mAbs. We aimed to isolate mAbs agnostic to cognate antigens that target whole merozoites and simultaneously induce potent neutrophil activity measured by the level of reactive oxygen species (ROS) production using an antibody-dependent respiratory burst (ADRB) assay...

The ethics in Catholic hospitals are guided by the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services, which provide direction on many topics, including family planning. Previous research has demonstrated there is variability in the availability of prohibited family planning services at Catholic hospitals. This study aims to research a potential source of variability in interpretation and application of the directives through interviewing ethics committee members. Participants were recruited from two different hospitals on the east coast with a total sample size of eight...

BACKGROUND: Socioeconomic status as measured by education, income, or occupation, has been associated with fibromyalgia but the underlying mechanism and the role of lifestyle factors are unclear. Thus, we examine the role of modifiable lifestyle factors (body mass index, physical activity, alcohol consumption and smoking) in the association between education and self-reported fibromyalgia. METHODS: We used data from 74,157 participants in the population-based prospective Norwegian Women and Cancer (NOWAC) study...

BACKGROUND: Vaccination is one of the most cost-effective public health interventions used to prevent diseases in susceptible populations. Despite the established efficacy of vaccines, there are many reasons people are hesitant about vaccination, and these reasons could be complex. This rapid survey estimated the prevalence of COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy and potentially contributing factors in Montserrado and Nimba counties in Liberia. METHODS: A cross-sectional study was conducted among adults living in Liberia...

BACKGROUND: Research on the lived experience of dementia is burgeoning across the social and health sciences. Yet, very little is still known about the experience of dementia for many tribes and ethnoreligious groups, as most studies are conducted in Western countries. OBJECTIVE: The aim is to advance the understanding of the role of faith and prayer in the lives of people with dementia in Nigeria through a lens of everyday citizenship. METHOD: Interviews were conducted with 17 older people with dementia in a low-income, Yoruba-speaking community in Southwestern Nigeria...

Despite self-congratulatory rhetoric, Canada compromised COVID-19 vaccine equity with policies impeding a proposed global waiver of vaccine intellectual property (IP) rules. To learn from Canada's vaccine nationalism we explore the worldview - a coherent textual picture of the world - in a sample of Government of Canada communications regarding global COVID-19 vaccine sharing. Analysed documents portray risks and disparities as unrelated to the dynamics and power relations of the Canadian and international economies...

We are surrounded by trauma, grief, pandemics, health care inequality, poverty, climate change, and social injustice, not to mention increases in suicide, depression, and loneliness. How can group therapists address these issues and thrive? The current special edition focuses on how groups foster compassion, provide spiritual healing, and address human suffering in effective and innovative ways. Instead of focusing on symptom reduction alone, group therapists and researchers are exploring ways that group therapy can provide healing and resources to people including health care providers, and those who are on the front lines...

BACKGROUND: Vision challenges are among the most prevalent disabling conditions in childhood, affecting up to 28% of school-age children. These issues can impact the development, learning, and literacy skills of affected children. While vision problems are correctable with timely diagnosis and treatment, insufficient networks can impede children's access to comprehensive, and high-quality care. OBJECTIVE: The study aims to determine where pediatric vision care network adequacy exists in the state of Arizona and where there are gaps in receiving vision care for children...

In June 2023, the UK began official hearings for its independent investigation into pandemic preparedness. Thus far, the inquiry has been told that planning has been wholly inadequate and that a future outbreak is inevitable. We present here four key problems that contributed to significant morbidity and mortality during the Coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic over the past 3 years in the UK - and which will contribute to excess morbidity and mortality in the next outbreak. First, there was misunderstanding about what procedures were deemed as aerosol generating...

This mixed-methods study was conducted to explore the role of faith in mental health among Latino women (Latinas) during the COVID-19 pandemic. As part of a lifestyle study, surveys were administered to 89 participants during the 1st year of the pandemic. Specifically, a focus group was conducted with participants (n = 6) directly affected by COVID-19 (i.e., self or family member). The results showed inverse correlations between religiosity and both depression and anxiety, as well as positive correlations among religious practices, religious coping, and religiosity...

BACKGROUND: Vascular surgical site infections have been reported with an overall incidence of 5-10% for patients undergoing arterial interventions and as high as 10-20% for lower-limb bypass grafting procedures. Given that vascular surgery patients are known to be at a higher risk of postoperative wound infections and other complications, our objective was to evaluate a potential method to reduce such complications. This study compares the rate of wound healing complications between incisional negative pressure wound therapy (NPWT) and conventional dressings in vascular surgery patients with infra-inguinal incisions...