The role of the environment in the sexual activity of school students in Tororo and Pallisa districts of Uganda

Several models of adolescent sexual activity have previously been published and most of them suggest two basic components, biological and sociological. This article highlights important environmental factors in shaping the sexual behaviour of the school-going youth in Uganda. Students in education levels Senior 1 to 6 participated in the study. Information was collected from self-response structured questionnaires, focus-group discussions, and discussions with teachers. Student respondents were randomly selected. The study found that 65 per cent of male and 32 per cent of the female unmarried secondary school students had sexual experience. Of the sexually active youth, 49 per cent of the males and 25 per cent of the females had multiple sexual partners. Four main environmental factors appear to be important in shaping school students’ sexual activity in Uganda today: parental care, peer influence, economic factors and AIDS education. Some elements accelerate and others suppress sexual activity

Social context of HIV infection in Uganda

Some of the important policy and research implications of accumulating HIV/AIDS data are being ignored because of the attraction of social science research focused on the ‘multiple sexual mechanism’ of infection and transmission. Attention is drawn to the other policy and research issues relating to information on the timing of infection through a reanalysis of existing data on cumulative AIDS cases. The most urgent need is to supplement the mainstream research on risk groups with studies of the timing and circumstances of entry into sexual activity in the pre-teen years

Suicidal ideation and associated factors among school-going adolescents in rural Uganda

Abstract Background Mental health is a neglected area of health research and practice in most of sub-Saharan African countries where the largest burden of morbidity is from infectious diseases. This even occurs despite the fact that some mental health problems may arise from infectious diseases. Methods We conducted secondary analysis of the Uganda Global School-Based Health Survey-2003 to obtain the prevalence of, and assess factors that may be associated with suicidal ideation among school-going adolescents in rural Uganda. Assessment of association was conducted through both bi-variate and multivariate logistic regression analysis. Results Altogether 21.6% of the study participants, 21.3% males and 23.5% females had seriously considered committing suicide within the past 12 months. Loneliness, worry were positively associated with suicide ideation after adjusting for age, gender, smoking, drinking, and experience of having been bullied (OR = 1.59; 95% CI [1.12, 2.26] and OR = 1.19; 95% CI [1.12, 2.25]) respectively. Males were less likely to seriously consider committing suicide than females (OR = 0.70; 95% CI [0.50, 0.98]). Conclusion Adolescent suicidal ideation is a major public health issue in rural Uganda. Measures aimed to prevent adolescent suicides in Uganda should incorporate our understanding of factors that are associated with suicide in rural Uganda such the gender disparity and the association observed with substance use

On the limits of sexual health literacy: Insights from Ugandan schoolgirls

This article makes the case that current conceptions of sexual health literacy have limited relevance to the Ugandan context because they assume that knowledge of unsafe sexual practices will lead to changes in behavior and lifestyle. Drawing on a longitudinal case study with 15 Ugandan schoolgirls in rural Uganda from August 2004 to September 2006, this study argues that despite being well-informed about the risks and responsibilities of sexual activity, poverty and sexual abuse severely constrained options for these young women. Although many believed in the value of abstaining from sexual activity until marriage, they engaged in transactional sex to pay for school fees, supplies, clothing, and food. Further, fear of sexual abuse, early pregnancy, and HIV–AIDS compromised attempts to embrace sexuality. The article concludes with implications of the study for research and policy on sexual health literacy in Uganda and other poorly resourced regions of the world

Early Alcohol Use and Problem Drinking Among Students in Zambia and Uganda

Excessive alcohol use is a serious public health concern worldwide, but less attention has been given to the prevalence, risk and protective factors, and consequences of early alcohol use in low-income, developing countries.The purpose of this study was to determine the associations between early alcohol use, before age 13, and problem drinking among adolescents in Uganda and Zambia. Data from students in Zambia (n=2257; 2004) and Uganda (n=3215; 2003) were obtained from the cross sectional Global School-Based Student Health Survey (GSHS). The self-administered questionnaires were completed by students primarily 13 to 16 years of age. Multiple statistical models were computed using logistic regression analyses to test the associations between early alcohol initiation and problem drinking, while controlling for possible confounding factors (e.g., current alcohol use, bullying victimization, sadness, lack of friends, missingschool, lack of parental monitoring, and drug use). Results show that early alcohol initiation was associated with problem drinking in both Zambia (AOR=1.28; 95% CI:1.02-1.61) and Uganda (AOR=1.48; 95% CI: 1.11-1.98) among youth after controlling for demographic characteristics, risky behaviors, and other possible confounders.The study shows that there is a significant association between alcohol initiation before 13 years of age and problem drinking among youth in these two countries. These findings underscore the need for interventions and strict alcohol controls as an important policy strategy for reducing alcohol use and its dire consequences among vulnerable youth

La diaspora en dialogue : James A. Porter et Loïs Mailou Jones Pierre-Noël, ou comment écrire l’histoire de l’art haïtien

Jusqu’à une date récente, les historiens de l’art américains spécialistes de l’art haïtien – collectionneurs et artistes – développèrent leur réflexion en dehors des cercles académiques. Dans un premier temps, l’histoire de l’art haïtien fut donc élaborée dans un cadre intellectuel particulier par des individus dont les goûts et les intérêts personnels déterminèrent la nature des questions qui surgirent du dialogue avec les artistes haïtiens et leurs œuvres. Un exemple remarquable est celui de Selden Rodman, dont les commentaires exubérants sur l’art haïtien, conformes néanmoins au canon primitiviste, dominèrent la discipline pendant des dizaines d’années. Cet article examine les projets de recherche de James Amos Porter et Loïs Mailou Jones Pierre-Noël, artistes et historiens de l’art afro-américains. Leurs archives contiennent des éléments très fructueux permettant de remettre en question les analyses développées au milieu du xxe siècle sur l’art haïtien contemporain. Ils promurent tous deux la diversité des styles haïtiens ainsi qu’une longue liste d’artistes méconnus. Ils contribuèrent ainsi à élargir l’horizon du canon de l’art haïtien et à lutter contre les stéréotypes raciaux qui servaient alors à renforcer le statut inférieur des Noirs et à limiter, de manière générale, les droits des individus d’origine africaine.Until recently, North American scholarship about Haitian art has largely been undertaken at the individualized level by collectors and artists-turned-scholars who operated outside the bounds of the formal academy. This early Haitian art history, therefore, was formed on particular intellectual habits, conducted by individuals whose personal tastes and foci dictated the nature of the questions asked in dialogue with Haitian artists and their works. Selden Rodman, whose exuberant yet primitivising accounts of Haitian art dominated the field for decades, is a prime example. This article examines the research projects of African-American artist-scholars James Amos Porter and Loïs Mailou Jones Pierre-Noël and argues that their archives are fruitful sites for counter-discourses to mid-Twentieth-Century narratives of contemporary Haitian art. Both championed a diversity of Haitian styles and an expansive roster of artists, and argued that Haitian “sophisticates” artists were a legitimate avant garde that was also authentically Haitian. More than just expanding the Haitian art canon, their scholarship was an overt means to combat the ubiquitous racial stereotypes of the mid-Twentieth Century that reinforced Black inferiority and circumscribed the rights of all people of African descent

Troubling island: the imagining and imaging of Haiti by African-American artists, 1915-1940

Images of Haiti have circulated in the social imagination of the United States through painting, sculpture, illustration, performance and film since the late eighteenth century. Although much scholarship addresses the intertwined and often problematic relationship between the United States and Haiti, sparse art historical research addresses the complexities of U.S. visualizations of Haiti. The period of the U.S. occupation of Haiti (1915-1934) and its immediate aftermath resulted in the opening up of Haiti to unprecedented numbers of writers, ethnographers, and artists who focused both on Haiti as a contemporary nation, and retold and reinterpreted its revolutionary history to express new social and political needs. This dissertation contributes to a greater understanding of how representations of Haiti overwhelmingly articulate issues of race, while also touching on cultural anxieties of class, religion, patriotism and national identity. This dissertation specifically examines how African-American artists have worked against mainstream representations of Haiti to create alternate visions, combating and complicating many stereotypes, while also furthering an understanding of the transnational influences and outlook of several prominent twentieth-century African-American artists. Aaron Douglas, Jacob Lawrence, and William E. Scott are just a few of the African-American artists who drew on Haiti as a source of racial pride and heritage, personal transformation, or as a signifier for revolutionary change. iv While rooted in art historical analysis, privileging the visual over the text, this is an interdisciplinary dissertation that focuses on the broader context of cultural studies. I draw on both popular media and the performing and fine arts, and match art historical traditions with histories of anthropology and its evolving ethnographic practices, and the politics of U.S. international relations in the Caribbean. Through this lens, I expose how creative representations by African-American artists attempted to open new spaces in interpretations of Haiti, escaping the litany of tired and derogatory tropes so frequently applied to the "Black Republic.

Light Emitting Diodes as a Rapid Visual Display for Use in Psychological Experiments

In this paper we show how light emitting diodes (LEDs) can be used in conjunction with existing display technologies as a means for achieving ultra-rapid visual stimulus exposure durations. We review existing rapid visual display meth-ods, and show how our apparatus overcomes the limitations inherent with each technique. Our apparatus, the LED tach-istoscope, takes advantage of the fast-switching times and high-brightness capabilities of LEDs in order to present sti- muli at previously unachievable durations as rapid as 1 ms. The rapid exposure durations are achieved by external LED backlight illumination of images on a liquid crystal display (LCD) after the components of the LCD have stabilized. This ensures that stimulus onset and offset are discrete. Furthermore, the fast-switching of the LEDs enables stimuli to be revealed for very rapid durations. The paper also describes studies in which the LED tachistoscope has already been applied, and offers suggestions for other possible applications. Interestingly, in our studies we show that the human visual system is very adept at extracting information with only very minimal stimulus exposure durations. Such studies have not been possible with existing display equipment. The LED tachistoscope opens up avenues for a variety of psy-chological and physiological experiments and provides a means for revealing the limits of human visual perception