Dry dog and cat foods manufactured at plant X were linked to human illness for a 3-year period. This outbreak highlights the importance of proper handling and storage of pet foods in the home to prevent human illness, especially among young children.

A systematic review involving 50 randomized controlled trials (4,863 patients) published since 1980 was undertaken with the objective of assessing efficacy and safety of low back pain (LBP) medications. The methodological quality of each trial was evaluated based on a standardized system. Quality scores ranged from 26 to 82 points on a 100-point scale (from 0 to 100), indicating an overall moderate quality of the trials reviewed. Limited evidence was found regarding the effectiveness of drug treatments for LBP and current studies focused on short-term usage of the therapies. Available evidence supported the effectiveness of non-selective nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) in acute and chronic LBP, of muscle relaxants in acute LBP, and of antidepressants in chronic LBP; safety results were heterogeneous. More rigorously designed trials should be implemented to establish comparative efficacy and safety of drugs used to treat chronic and acute LBP.

HIV disclosure from parent to child is complex and challenging to HIV-positive parents and healthcare professionals. The purpose of the study was to understand the lived experiences of HIV-positive parents and their children during the disclosure process in Kenya. Sixteen HIV-positive parents, seven HIV-positive children, and five HIV-negative children completed semistructured, in-depth interviews. Data were analyzed using the Van Kaam method; NVivo 8 software was used to assist data analysis. We present data on the process of disclosure based on how participants recommended full disclosure be approached to HIV-positive and negative children. Participants recommended disclosure as a process starting at five years with full disclosure delivered at 10 years when the child was capable of understanding the illness, or by 14 years when the child was mature enough to receive the news if full disclosure had not been conducted earlier. Important considerations at the time of full disclosure included the parent’s and/or child’s health statuses, number of infected family members’ illnesses to be disclosed to the child, child’s maturity and understanding level, and the person best suited to deliver full disclosure to the child. The results also revealed it was important to address important life events such as taking a national school examination during disclosure planning and delivery. Recommendations are made for inclusion into HIV disclosure guidelines, manuals, and programs in resource-poor nations with high HIV prevalence.

The aim of this research brief is to describe a study that examined how HIV-positive parents prepared themselves and their children for HIV disclosure in Kenya. This is the first study from Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) that provides comprehensive data on how HIV-positive parents prepare themselves and their HIV-positive and negative children for disclosure of a parent’s and/or a child’s illness. Prior studies in SSA have provided limited details about the activities performed by parents to prepare for disclosure of a parent’s or a child’s illness. Key aspects of preparing for disclosure to children: 1. Most parents take years to prepare for disclosure, proceeding when they judge themselves ready to impart the news and their children receptive to receive the news. 2. Parents’ preparation activities for disclosure proceed through four major phases which include secrecy, exploration, readiness, and finally full disclosure of illness. 3. In the secrecy phase parents do not disclose; in the exploration phase they plan how they will disclose; in the readiness phase they seek activities that will help them to fully disclose; finally when ready they fully disclose to their children based on birth order. 4. Parents who have many children remain simultaneously within the different preparation phases as they move their children from a state where none are disclosed to, to a state when all of them have been fully disclosed to. The original research article is located at: http://scholarworks.waldenu.edu/jsbhs/vol8/iss1/1/

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Many neglected tropical and vector-borne diseases continue to emerge and reemerge in Africa where a significant number of governments have limited state capacity. The reasons these diseases resurface are numerous and this problem remains unsolved. This study contributes to existing research by examining how economic and sociopolitical attributes of state capacity influence the transmission of disease in a population. This ecological study examined relationships between state capacity and the epidemiology of five neglected tropical and vector-borne diseases in a sample of 33 African countries. Regression analyses were used to examine the relationships between state capacity, i.e., economic and sociopolitical attributes, and disease burden, incidence, prevention/control and mortality. Results revealed statistically significant relationships between state capacity and the following dependent variables: all disease-burden variables; insecticide-treated-nets prevention and control; and all age-related and human African trypanosomiasis mortalities. A broad range of effect sizes (R(2) = 0.02-0.59) were observed and the economic and sociopolitical attributes of state capacity made different contributions to these effects. Future studies should explore the economic and sociopolitical attributes of state capacity that influence disease transmission by examining different populations or diseases, and by using different research methods.

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The HIV disclosure process is not well understood in Kenya. There are no guidelines to assist parents and healthcare professionals (HCPs) in the preparation and performance of disclosure. Some families have multiple infected persons thereby complicating disclosure delivery further as parents grapple for years with why, when, where, how, and which of their children to prepare for disclosure. Two theoretical models of HIV disclosure were tested during the conduct of this study.