Community perceptions of a malaria vaccine in the Kintampo districts of Ghana.

BACKGROUND: Malaria remains the leading cause of morbidity and mortality in sub-Saharan Africa despite tools currently available for its control. Making malaria vaccine available for routine use will be a major hallmark, but its acceptance by community members and health professionals within the health system could pose considerable challenge as has been found with the introduction of polio vaccinations in parts of West Africa. Some of these challenges may not be expected since decisions people make are many a time driven by a complex myriad of perceptions. This paper reports knowledge and perceptions of community members in the Kintampo area of Ghana where malaria vaccine trials have been ongoing as part of the drive for the first-ever licensed malaria vaccine in the near future. METHODS: Both qualitative and quantitative methods were used in the data collection processes. Women and men whose children were or were not involved in the malaria vaccine trial were invited to participate in focus group discussions (FGDs). Respondents, made up of heads of religious groupings in the study area, health care providers, traditional healers and traditional birth attendants, were also invited to participate in in-depth interviews (IDIs). A cross-sectional survey was conducted in communities where the malaria vaccine trial (Mal 047RTS,S) was carried out. In total, 12 FGDs, 15 IDIs and 466 household head interviews were conducted. RESULTS: Knowledge about vaccines was widespread among participants. Respondents would like their children to be vaccinated against all childhood illnesses including malaria. Knowledge of the long existing routine vaccines was relatively high among respondents compared to hepatitis B and Haemophilus influenza type B vaccines that were introduced more recently in 2002. There was no clear religious belief or sociocultural practice that will serve as a possible barrier to the acceptance of a malaria vaccine. CONCLUSION: With the assumption that a malaria vaccine will be as efficacious as other EPI vaccines, community members in Central Ghana will accept and prefer malaria vaccine to malaria drugs as a malaria control tool. Beliefs and cultural practices as barriers to the acceptance of malaria vaccine were virtually unknown in the communities surveyed

A Blind Spot in Girls’ Education: Menarche and its Webs of Exclusion

Despite notable progress in girls' education over the last decade, gender-based differences continue to shape educational outcomes. One of the most overlooked of these differences is the process of maturation itself, including menstruation. This paper presents the findings of a study that assessed the impact of sanitary care on the school attendance of post-pubertal girls, as well as the implications of menarche for their well-being. The study found that the provision of adequate sanitary care represents a relatively unrecognized but potentially fruitful tool in strategies that aim to improve girls' educational outcomes, one that warrants policy consideration among development planner

Adaptation opportunities and maladaptive outcomes in climate vulnerability hotspots of northern Ghana

How climate change adaptation practices can constrain development and deliver maladaptive outcomes in vulnerability hotspots is yet to be explored in-depth using case study analyses. This paper explores the effects of climate change coping and adaptation responses in three case study villages across the Central Gonja district of northern Ghana. The study addresses the following research questions: i) What are the key climatic and non-climatic stressors confronting households in northern Ghanaian communities? ii) How are households adapting to climatic and non-climatic stressors? and iii) What are the outcomes of these coping and adaptation responses on development? The study employs a mixed-method approach including key informant interviews, focus group discussions and household questionnaire surveys. Data identified socioeconomic stressors including a lack of access to (and high cost of) farm inputs, labour shortages and population growth. Climatic stressors include erratic rainfall, high temperature, droughts and floods. Climatic and non-climatic stressors interact to affect agricultural practices and related livelihoods. The study identified various adaptation measures including extensification and intensification of agriculture, temporary migration, planting of drought resistant varieties, irrigation, and livelihood diversification. We show that many coping measures (e.g. livelihood diversifications activities such as selling of firewood and charcoal production) and adaptation responses (including intensification, extensification and irrigation) currently deliver maladaptive outcomes, resulting in lock-ins that could exacerbate future climate vulnerabilities. The paper contributes to the growing literature on adaptation and climate risk management by providing empirical evidence showing how coping and adaptations measures can deliver maladaptive outcomes in vulnerable communities

Domestic Violence in Ghana: Incidence, Attitudes, Determinants and Consequences

This innovative mixed-methods study, commissioned by the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection in Ghana and the UK Department for International Development, and funded by UK aid, provides an in-depth understanding of the incidence, attitudes, causes and consequences of domestic violence in Ghana, as well as investigating the effectiveness of existing institutional support offered to women and men.UK Ai

Varieties of context and informal entrepreneurship: Entrepreneurial activities of migrant youths in rural Ghana

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the multi-faceted contexts, which influence the motives, decisions and actions that underpin the mundane and lively entrepreneurial practice of migrant youth entrepreneurs (MYEs) within a developing economy context. Moreover, the paper explores the under-researched linkages between migration and informal entrepreneurship. Design/methodology/approach Inductive, qualitative field data from a migrant destination, the Ashanti Region in Ghana are analysed, comprising 15 interviews with MYEs who hail from 12 communities in the three Northern Regions of Ghana. The authors introduce a narrative-based approach, which has previously been under-employed within empirical studies of informal entrepreneurship. Findings The findings showcase the complex array of opportunities and challenges, which influence individual decisions to engage in informal entrepreneurship. The findings highlight the importance of not only economic rationales but also non-economic rationales for engaging in informal entrepreneurship. Such rationales emerge from the legitimation of informal practices, the social embeddedness of migrant youth within family and community networks and the precarious nature of informal entrepreneurship. Originality/value The fine-grained discussion of the findings contributes explicitly to theory by underscoring the diversity of informal entrepreneurship activities. Theoretically, the article demonstrates the need to look beyond narrow economic explanations for why individuals engage in informal entrepreneurship. Taking a more holistic approach to explaining motivations for engaging in informal entrepreneurship, enables more nuanced understandings of the importance of non-economic rationales for individuals, located in specific contextual settings

Perceived stressors of climate vulnerability across scales in the Savannah zone of Ghana: a participatory approach

Smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa are confronted with climatic and non-climatic stressors. Research attention has focused on climatic stressors, such as rainfall variability, with few empirical studies exploring non-climatic stressors and how these interact with climatic stressors at multiple scales to affect food security and livelihoods. This focus on climatic factors restricts understanding of the combinations of stressors that exacerbate the vulnerability of farming households and hampers the development of holistic climate change adaptation policies. This study addresses this particular research gap by adopting a multi-scale approach to understand how climatic and non-climatic stressors vary, and interact, across three spatial scales (household, community and district levels) to influence livelihood vulnerability of smallholder farming households in the Savannah zone of northern Ghana. This study across three case study villages utilises a series of participatory tools including semi-structured interviews, key informant interviews and focus group discussions. The incidence, importance, severity and overall risk indices for stressors are calculated at the household, community, and district levels. Results show that climatic and non-climatic stressors were perceived differently; yet, there were a number of common stressors including lack of money, high cost of farm inputs, erratic rainfall, cattle destruction of crops, limited access to markets and lack of agricultural equipment that crossed all scales. Results indicate that the gender of respondents influenced the perception and severity assessment of stressors on rural livelihoods at the community level. Findings suggest a mismatch between local and district level priorities that have implications for policy and development of agricultural and related livelihoods in rural communities. Ghana’s climate change adaptation policies need to take a more holistic approach that integrates both climatic and non-climatic factors to ensure policy coherence between national climate adaptation plans and District development plans

Following the footsteps: Urbanisation of Wa Municipality and its synergism in risk accumulation, uncertainties and complexities in urban Ghana.

Global demographic characteristics have witnessed a significant shift with more than half of the world's population crossing the rural-urban threshold in 2008. In Ghana, the 2010 census report revealed 50.9% urban population. While the many benefits of organised and efficient cities are well understood, it must be recognised that rapid, often unplanned urbanisation brings risk of profound social instability, risk to critical infrastructure, potential water crises and the potential for devastating spread of disease. These risks can only be further exacerbated as this unprecedented transition from rural to urban areas continues. This also means stakes are high for public and private interventions to ensure that urbanisation reinforces rather than retards prosperity. In spite of these past experiences, urban governance policies in emerging smaller cities are frequently ambivalent and piecemeal, exhibiting similar negative tendencies, a development that has received less academic attention. This study adopted multiple research techniques and the data were generated through a structured questionnaire survey, personal interviews and discussions. Based on our conviction that the development trajectory of any city hinges on the quality of its physical foundation, we seek to fill the knowledge gap using the Wa Municipality, the least urbanised but one of the fastest urbanising cities in Ghana today, as a case study. The results reveal emerging tendencies that indicate that Wa appears to be following in the footsteps of its predecessors - experiencing an inefficient potable water supply system and chronic sanitation situation, making diarrhoea one of many challenges for residents. It is ultimately suggested that a collaborative partnership with all key stakeholders is a better option to reap the potential for urbanisation to strengthen economic growth and development

Is abortion justified to save the life or health of a woman? Evidence of public opinion from Accra, Ghana

ObjectiveIn this study, we sought to determine to what extent the abortion law in Ghana is reflective of public opinion.MethodsIn a cross‐sectional, community‐based survey, individuals in two fishing communities in Accra were interviewed about their beliefs on abortion between May and July 2016, and sociodemographic, attitudinal, and experience data were collected. Factors associated with the outcome variable (abortion is justified to save the life/health of the woman: Yes/No) were entered into a multivariate logistic regression.ResultsA total of 508 participants completed the survey. Thirty‐nine percent (n=198) of the sample agreed that abortion was justified to save the life/health of the woman, with no significant differences in this finding when controlling for understanding of the law, gender, marital status, or personal experience of abortion in multivariate analysis. Higher education (odds ratio [OR] 1.64 [P<0.001]) and older age (OR 1.28 [P<0.001]) are positively associated with abortion being justified to save life/health, while those who have had an experience of unwanted sex are less likely to believe that (OR 0.60 [P=0.029]).ConclusionThe participants held conservative views about the justification of abortion to save a woman’s life and/or health. Improving access to safe abortion services will require acknowledgment of the broader social and cultural context that may make accessing such services difficult.In a cross‐sectional survey, residents of urban Accra, Ghana, held relatively conservative views toward the justification of abortion.Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/151335/1/ijgo12927.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/151335/2/ijgo12927_am.pd