Browsing by Author "Jin, Y."
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Item Cost-benefit analysis of water source improvements through borehole drilling or rehabilitation: an empirical study based on a cluster randomized controlled trial in the Volta Region, Ghana(Global Health Action, 2018-10) Kim, S.J,; Lee, Y.; Cha, S.; Cho, Y.; Choi., S.; Asuming, P.; Kim, Y.; Jin, Y.Background: Despite remarkable progress in water coverage improvements, diseases associated with poor water remain a considerable public health problem in many developing countries. Objective: We aimed to estimate the costs and benefits of drilling or rehabilitating boreholes with handpumps in resource-poor settings and hard-to-reach areas. Methods: Diarrheal reduction in the population was predicted on the basis of the empirical findings from a cluster randomized controlled trial. The full investment and estimated annual running costs were used to calculate the intervention costs. Direct economic benefits of avoiding child diarrheal disease, indirect economic benefits related to health improvements, and non-health benefits related to water improvement were estimated. One-way and multiway sensitivity analyses were performed to determine the robustness of the findings. Results: Our analysis found that the return on a US$ 1 investment was US$ 9.4 for borehole drilling and US$ 14.1 for borehole rehabilitation. Time savings were the main contributor, accounting for 68% of the benefits, followed by the economic benefits of averted child deaths, which contributed to 15% of the benefits. The sensitivity analyses suggested that improving water sources yields high returns under all circumstances, and that borehole rehabilitation is more efficient than borehole drilling. Conclusion: This study explicitly justifies increased investment in water improvement in rural areas and demonstrates the high returns of rehabilitating boreholes. We hope that this study will be used as evidence for informing the policy decisions of governments or international agencies regarding further investments in improved water coverage in rural areas and the selection of appropriately designed interventions.Item Phytochemical Properties and Nutrigenomic Implications of Yacon as a Potential Source of Prebiotic: Current Evidence and Future Directions(Foods, 2018-04) Cao, Y.; Ma, Z.F.; Zhang, H.; Jin, Y.; Zhang, Y.; Hayford, F.The human gut is densely populated with diverse microbial communities that are essential to health. Prebiotics and fiber have been shown to possess the ability to modulate the gut microbiota. One of the plants being considered as a potential source of prebiotic is yacon. Yacon is an underutilized plant consumed as a traditional root-based fruit in South America. Yacon mainly contains fructooligosaccharides (FOS) and inulin. Therefore, it has bifidogenic benefits for gut health, because FOS are not easily broken down by digestive enzymes. Bioactive chemical compounds and extracts isolated from yacon have been studied for their various nutrigenomic properties, including as a prebiotic for intestinal health and their antimicrobial and antioxidant effects. This article reviewed scientific studies regarding the bioactive chemical compounds and nutrigenomic properties of extracts and isolated compounds from yacon. These findings may help in further research to investigate yacon-based nutritional products. Yacon can be considered a potential prebiotic source and a novel functional food. However, more detailed epidemiological, animal, and human clinical studies, particularly mechanism-based and phytopharmacological studies, are lacking for the development of evidence-based functional food products.