Journal of Health Education Research & Development

The average American teenager spends nearly eleven hours a day engaged in social media and accessing digital music multimedia, which has negative effects on health and educational attainment. Curricula that contain youthfriendly media could improve learning, reduce risky and problem behavior and improve health outcomes, but may be controversial given some of the content. This study was designed to assess stakeholder’s perceptions of a curriculum built around Popular Youth Music Media (PYMM) called Musics Energy: The Message in the Music™ (ME: MIM). This intervention consists of six modules implemented over 24 sessions. ME-MIM uses PYMM to teach students how to deconstruct music by collaborating, communicating, reading closely, thinking critically, conducting research and taking useful notes by listening. In-depth interviews and focus groups were conducted with 11 middleschool students and 6 teachers across multiple school districts. The constant comparative method was employed to explore emerging and recurring themes. Major themes were that ME: MIM was acceptable to most students and conditionally acceptable to most teachers. Stakeholders indicated that ME:MIM may be used as a component of a culturally informed, carefully monitored curriculum. Given the findings of this study, ME:MIM appears to be an acceptable and feasible approach to addressing health risk behavior, education disparities and educational engagement, especially among those who may be at higher risk for school disengagement and those who are exposed to more programmed media messages.

Tuberculosis is a major global public health problem and a leading cause of morbidity and mortality in Kenya. TB control has remained a major challenge for the TB control programme especially in this HIV/AIDS era and the emergence of multi-drug resistant TB (MDR-TB). Early identification of cases and commencement of effective chemotherapy is an effective method to control the spread of TB. Reliance on passive case finding means that patients play a key role in reducing delay to diagnosis and treatment. Patient delay (duration from onset of symptoms to first contact with a health care provider at a public health facility) is a major challenge to TB control and is dependent on several factors. The purpose of this study was to determine the duration from onset of symptoms to seeking appropriate TB treatment among pulmonary TB (PTB) patients and investigate the factors associated with patient delay in Suneka sub-County, Kisii County, Kenya. A cross-sectional survey, using a semi-structured questionnaire, was carried out at five public health facilities in the sub-County. Data entry, management and analysis were done using SPSS Version 15. The mean patient delay and associations between length of patient delay and the various independent variables was determined. Multiple logistic regression was performed to determine the factors independently associated with patient delay. The mean patient delay was 54 days and 65.4% of the study subjects had delayed for more than 30 days. Delay in seeking appropriate TB treatment among PTB patients in Suneka sub-County was associated with poor perception of services in public health facilities (OR=4.91; CI=1.6-15.3; P=0.0061), visiting a private clinic (OR=4.24; CI=1.5-11.6; P=0.0052) and stigma (OR=2.46; CI=1.9-12.2; P=0.0178). Most PTB patients in Suneka sub-County delay in presenting at public health facilities after the onset of major TB symptoms and the main factors responsible for this delay include having a poor perception of the quality of services offered in public health facilities, prior attendance at a private clinic and stigma associated with the disease. Delay was not found to be associated with the patient socio-demographic characteristics, knowledge of TB, distance or transport cost to the nearest public health facility. Since TB services are integrated in the general health care system, the findings highlight the need by the Ministry of Health (MOH) to improve service delivery at public health facilities and thereby encourage patients to seek early diagnosis and treatment of communicable diseases or reduce patient delays. Educational campaigns should go beyond providing general information about TB to emphasize embracing a positive attitude of transmission reduction through early treatment.

The unique benefits of employing peer educators as specially trained co-facilitators have become increasingly popular in HIV risk and health promotion interventions. While several independent studies use peer educators alongside trained specialists, this intervention used co-facilitators to implement a health promotion program for university students at a rural South African university. A total of 16 postgraduate students, were trained as cofacilitators. The co-facilitators were randomly assigned to either of two intervention groups, the health promotion intervention or the health risk reduction intervention. This resulted in two successful interventions that educated university students on practicing healthy lifestyles, which included healthy diets, fruits and vegetables, how to prepare meals, physical activity, limiting alcohol consumption, reducing the number of sexual partners, condom use, effects of STD’s and HIV/AIDS, prevention and abstinence.

Nepal is one of the climate change prone countries in the world. Geophysical and socioeconomic condition of country have predetermined vulnerability of the country to drought, earthquake, epidemic, fire, flood, forest fire, land slide and other climate related events affecting human and animal health, injuries, and quality of life. In light of such a situation we aimed to review knowledge related to potential health impacts of climate change on population of Nepal. Literature search using major public health, environmental and social databases as well as international reports was completed the get an overview of existing knowledge. There is a little published knowledge related to potential health impacts of climate change on population of Nepal. However, the knowledge of relationship between climate change and health and knowledge of environment allow discussing main routes of potential impact as well as health effects is a crucial issue to explore. More direct, population based research would be necessary to provide sound knowledge for emergency planning and mitigation measures.

Science is critical to the progress of humanity through its unveiling of the intricate processes that co-mingle in different aspects of life. Particularly, the next generation of citizens will carry a burden of scientific uncertainties that will require the breaking of new frontiers, discovery and invention for the very survival of humanity. Discrimination based on economic, social and racial status in the imparting of scientific knowledge, burdens society and slows the progression of scientific knowledge. Despite these challenges and the preeminence of the US in scientific research, US high school students continue to lag behind students from many other nations including those from newly emerging economies, particularly in international tests of scientific knowledge.