Conectar
by Vivian Hoffmann, Boaz Ndisio, Allan Barasa, Sheila Okoth, Mike Murphy
Foodborne illness is a major source of the global burden of disease, but public monitoring of hazards in food systems is overwhelmingly focused on the formal sector in high income countries. We contribute to the development of an evidence base on food safety risk in low-income and informal settings by monitoring aflatoxin prevalence in maize flour in Kenya. Aflatoxin is a contaminant which causes liver cancer and has been linked to childhood stunting. We carry out systematic monitoring of formally and informally processed maize flour from a range of retail vendors across ten urban sites in Kenya and analyze aflatoxin levels in commercial samples. Samples were obtained every two months from February-December 2021 and 1255 samples in total were analyzed. Almost all samples (97%) showed detectable levels of aflatoxin, with 16% of tested samples exceeding the national regulatory limit of 10 ppb. Mean contamination levels are significantly higher (pThis study aims to assess the feasibility of respondent-driven sampling (RDS) to recruit participants with recent abortion experiences in humanitarian contexts, and describe the composition of the study sample generated with this sampling method.
This was a three-phase mixed-methods community-engaged research study employing an exploratory and explanatory sequential approach. We conducted in-depth interviews, focus group discussions, an interviewer-administered questionnaire on abortion experiences and a health facility assessment.
Bidibidi Refugee Settlement, Uganda and Kakuma Refugee Camp, Kenya from November 2021 to December 2022.
Using RDS, we recruited 600 participants in Kakuma and 601 participants in Bidibidi with recent abortion experiences. In Kakuma, participants were primarily from Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and South Sudan; participants in Bidibidi were primarily from South Sudan. Most participants in both sites had completed at least some primary school and were not employed.
RDS recruitment dynamics: convergence and bottlenecks on key sociodemographic variables, recruitment and population homophily, reciprocity of social ties, success and experiences recruiting.
There were minor violations of RDS assumptions, particularly regarding assumptions of reciprocity of ties and seed composition independent of sample. In addition, there was a strong tendency of participants to recruit those from the same home country and living within the same camp zone. However, sample proportions for age, home country, marital status, zone of residence and student status reached equilibrium (stabilised) by around 500 participants at each site, and we were able to quickly attain the study sample size.
While the true representativeness of our sample remains unknown, RDS is a practical and effective recruitment method in humanitarian contexts for sensitive topics, particularly for research questions in which no data or sampling frames exist. However, attention to representativeness and community engagement is essential to optimising its application and ensuring success.
FreshRSS 