The Current Health and Wellbeing of the Survivors of the Rana Plaza Building Collapse in Bangladesh: A Qualitative Study.

This study aims to identify the ongoing physical and psychological health vulnerabilities of the readymade garment (RMG) factory workers involved in the Rana Plaza building collapse in 2013, along with their experiences within the current socioeconomic and political contexts of Bangladesh. Seventeen Rana Plaza survivors participated in unstructured, face-to-face, in-depth interviews. Interviews were thematically analyzed using Haddon's matrix to examine pre-event, event, and post-event injury experiences. The collapse of the Rana Plaza building resulted in significant physical and emotional trauma for those who survived the event. The majority of the participants were forced to attend work on the day of the collapse. Participants reported physical health complaints related to bone injuries/fractures and amputation, severe headache, kidney problems, and functional difficulties. In addition to the reported physical health issues, the participants revealed psychological health issues including trauma, depression and suicidal ideation, sleep disorders, anxiety, and sudden anger. Participants described barriers to their potential for re-employment in the RMG sector and outlined their limited access to free healthcare for follow-up treatment. Those who survived the collapse of the Rana Plaza building continue to experience significant adverse physical and emotional outcomes related to the disaster. Yet, they have little recourse to ensure the availability of adequate health care and rehabilitation. Given the international reliance on the Bangladeshi RMG industry, continued pressure to ensure care is provided for these survivors, and to reduce the risk of future disasters, is necessary

Prevalence of Suicide Thoughts and Behaviours among Female Garment Workers Who Survived the Rana Plaza Collapse: An In-Depth Inquiry.

The Rana Plaza building collapse occurred on 24 April 2013 in Savar, near the capital city of Bangladesh, killing more than 1130 garment workers and injured about 2500, mostly females. Those who survived face ongoing challenges, including socio-cultural constraints, economic hardship, post-traumatic stress disorders (PTSD), depression, and critical health issues, which may lead to suicidal ideation and death. The aim of this article is to explore why and how female garment workers who survived the Rana Plaza collapse are now at risk of suicide thoughts and behaviours, and suicide death. Unstructured face-to-face interviews were held from April to July 2018 with 11 female garment workers who survived the Rana Plaza building collapse. Interviews continued until data saturation was reached. The interviews were tape-recorded and transcribed verbatim while simultaneously being translated into English from Bengali/Bangla. Transcripts were coded and thematically analysed. The study found that all participants were living with multiple risk factors of suicidal ideation (including low socio-economic status, poverty, social stigma, psychological distress, and trauma) which the participants directly linked to the collapse of the Rana Plaza building. Our analysis uses the three-step theory of suicide (3ST, Klonsky & May, 2015) to understand female Rana Plaza survivors' suicide risk. Female survivors' overall vulnerability requires urgent attention while taking the socio-cultural setting of Bangladesh into account. In addition, a lifelong caring system (combining financial security and free healthcare) needs to be initiated to accommodate the female survivors with mainstream society to avoid possible future suicides. They require long-term social and economic security and psychological support

Health Impact and Risk Factors Affecting South and Southeast Asian Women Following Natural Disasters: A Systematic Review.

(1) Background: Following natural disasters, women have a higher prevalence of adverse physical and mental health outcomes. Given that the South and Southeast Asia regions are highly disaster prone, a review was undertaken to identify the potential health impact and key risk factors affecting women after disasters in the countries located in South and Southeast Asia regions. (2) Methods: A systematic literature search of four databases yielded 16 studies meeting the inclusion criteria. The review was conducted according to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA) guidance, between July 2008 and March 2021. (3) Results: The majority of studies reported women's negative/poor mental health, identifying a significant association of socio-demographics, during disaster exposure, post-disaster, and pre-existing risk factors. The six most-cited influences on women's mental health found in the reviewed literature were being female, adult age group, having no formal education, poverty or low economic status, poor physical health/physical injuries, and death of family members. Women's health during the post-disaster period was generally reported as poor among all the countries of the South and Southeast Asia regions. (4) Conclusions: Appropriate social support and the availability of free healthcare access for women are warranted in disaster-affected areas. This review offers a valuable contribution to the knowledge of women's health complications/challenges and associated risk factors related to disasters, essential for the development of strategies to help reduce this burden in the future. Further research is required on natural disasters to identify ways to reduce women's health impacts after natural disasters, especially in the context of low-income and lower-middle-income countries

Fermi Gamma-ray Imaging of a Radio Galaxy

The Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope has detected the gamma-ray glow emanating from the giant radio lobes of the radio galaxy Centaurus A. The resolved gamma-ray image shows the lobes clearly separated from the central active source. In contrast to all other active galaxies detected so far in high-energy gamma-rays, the lobe flux constitutes a considerable portion (>1/2) of the total source emission. The gamma-ray emission from the lobes is interpreted as inverse Compton scattered relic radiation from the cosmic microwave background (CMB), with additional contribution at higher energies from the infrared-to-optical extragalactic background light (EBL). These measurements provide gamma-ray constraints on the magnetic field and particle energy content in radio galaxy lobes, and a promising method to probe the cosmic relic photon fields.Comment: 27 pages, includes Supplementary Online Material; corresponding authors: C.C. Cheung, Y. Fukazawa, J. Knodlseder, L. Stawar

Detection of Gamma-Ray Emission from the Starburst Galaxies M82 and NGC 253 with the Large Area Telescope on Fermi

We report the detection of high-energy gamma-ray emission from two starburst galaxies using data obtained with the Large Area Telescope on board the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope. Steady point-like emission above 200 MeV has been detected at significance levels of 6.8 sigma and 4.8 sigma respectively, from sources positionally coincident with locations of the starburst galaxies M82 and NGC 253. The total fluxes of the sources are consistent with gamma-ray emission originating from the interaction of cosmic rays with local interstellar gas and radiation fields and constitute evidence for a link between massive star formation and gamma-ray emission in star-forming galaxies.Comment: Submitted to ApJ Letter

Health Professionals' Attitudes Towards Traditional Healing for Mental Illness: A Systematic Review.

Combining modern treatments with traditional healing approaches has been proposed as one way to address mental health problems, especially in low-income countries where the costs of pharmaceuticals often prevent or reduce their use. Despite health professionals' involvement being crucial for the integration of this approach, their involvement has been limited to date. This systematic review is designed to explore the attitudes of health professionals towards traditional healing practices for mental illness. The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA) 2020 guidelines were followed. The studies were identified from Scopus, EMBASE, PubMed, PsycINFO, and the Web of Sciences. The qualities of the included articles were assessed using the Mixed Method Appraisal Tool (MMAT) Version 2018, and mixed-method synthesis was used to narrate the results. Of the 2115 identified articles, 36 were included in the data synthesis. From the extracted data, health professionals had negative, mixed, and positive views towards traditional healing approaches for mental illness. Their negative attitude towards traditional healing approaches were due to their concerns that traditional healing may cause harm to service users, and they have no trust in the scientific basis, education, or practices of healers. Despite the fact that it is crucial for healthcare professionals to comprehend the cultural backgrounds of those receiving mental health services in order to offer care appropriately, health professionals' negative and mixed attitudinal expressions towards traditional healing approaches limit their involvement. This might be improved by identifying barriers from the perspective of practitioners and creating culturally appropriate guidelines for communication and referral between traditional healing approaches and biomedical care

A change in the optical polarization associated with a gamma-ray flare in the blazar 3C 279

It is widely accepted that strong and variable radiation detected over all accessible energy bands in a number of active galaxies arises from a relativistic, Doppler-boosted jet pointing close to our line of sight. The size of the emitting zone and the location of this region relative to the central supermassive black hole are, however, poorly known, with estimates ranging from light-hours to a light-year or more. Here we report the coincidence of a gamma-ray flare with a dramatic change of optical polarization angle. This provides evidence for co-spatiality of optical and gamma-ray emission regions and indicates a highly ordered jet magnetic field. The results also require a non-axisymmetric structure of the emission zone, implying a curved trajectory for the emitting material within the jet, with the dissipation region located at a considerable distance from the black hole, at about 10^5 gravitational radii.Comment: Published in Nature issued on 18 February 2010. Corresponding authors: Masaaki Hayashida and Greg Madejsk

Search for gamma-ray emission from magnetars with the Fermi Large Area Telescope

We report on the search for 0.1-10 GeV emission from magnetars in 17 months of Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT) observations. No significant evidence for gamma-ray emission from any of the currently-known magnetars is found. The most stringent upper limits to date on their persistent emission in the Fermi-LAT energy range are estimated between ~10^{-12}-10^{-10} erg/s/cm2, depending on the source. We also searched for gamma-ray pulsations and possible outbursts, also with no significant detection. The upper limits derived support the presence of a cut-off at an energy below a few MeV in the persistent emission of magnetars. They also show the likely need for a revision of current models of outer gap emission from strongly magnetized pulsars, which, in some realizations, predict detectable GeV emission from magnetars at flux levels exceeding the upper limits identified here using the Fermi-LAT observations.Comment: ApJ Letters in press; Corresponding authors: Caliandro G. A., Hadasch D., Rea N., Burnett

Fermi Large Area Telescope observations of PSR J1836+5925

The discovery of the gamma-ray pulsar PSR J1836+5925, powering the formerly unidentified EGRET source 3EG J1835+5918, was one of the early accomplishments of the Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT). Sitting 25 degrees off the Galactic plane, PSR J1836+5925 is a 173 ms pulsar with a characteristic age of 1.8 million years, a spindown luminosity of 1.1$\times10^{34}$ erg s$^{-1}$, and a large off-peak emission component, making it quite unusual among the known gamma-ray pulsar population. We present an analysis of one year of LAT data, including an updated timing solution, detailed spectral results and a long-term light curve showing no indication of variability. No evidence for a surrounding pulsar wind nebula is seen and the spectral characteristics of the off-peak emission indicate it is likely magnetospheric. Analysis of recent XMM observations of the X-ray counterpart yields a detailed characterization of its spectrum, which, like Geminga, is consistent with that of a neutron star showing evidence for both magnetospheric and thermal emission.Comment: Accepted to Astrophysical Journa

Measurement of mental health recovery knowledge and attitudes of professionals and students: development of the R-KAS tool.

BACKGROUND: The Recovery Knowledge Inventory (RKI) has been used widely across various settings to measure mental health professionals' and students' knowledge and attitudes about recovery. However, evidence suggests that this measure lacks sound psychometric properties and may not fully capture the multidimensional nature of recovery. This study aimed to adapt and establish the psychometric properties of a modified version of the RKI, resulting in both a long and a short version. METHODS: An exploratory sequential mixed-method design was employed in this study. In the first phase, qualitative interviews were conducted using a semi-structured guide to explore participants' understanding of mental health recovery. Their responses informed the development of a new survey tool used in the second phase. In total, 173 respondents were recruited via Qualtrics to complete an online survey. Descriptive and inferential statistics were conducted, including exploratory factor analysis, reliability analysis, Spearman correlation, and the Mann-Whitney U test. RESULTS: The 52 self-reported items were administered to 115 professionals and 58 students to assess the psychometric properties of this adapted measure. Exploratory Factor Analysis resulted in the removal of 14 items with low factor loadings, retaining 38 items in the long version of the newly adapted measure, the Recovery Knowledge and Attitude Scale (R-KAS). Also, a short 21-item version was developed. Both versions consist of three subscales namely Competence, Roles, and Responsibilities, and Process. Both the long and the short versions had good to excellent factor loadings (range .60 to.81) and high reliability (Cronbach's alpha 38 items; α = 0.95, 21 items, α = 0.93). Known-groups validity was supported, as professionals who had received mental health recovery training scored significantly higher than those who had not. CONCLUSIONS: Adapted from the original RKI and refined with input from consumers, the newly developed R-KAS tool appears to be psychometrically sound for assessing recovery knowledge and attitudes among professionals and students. Initial findings indicate that the R-KAS is a reliable and valid measure that may better reflect recovery-oriented practices in contemporary mental health settings