Research Articles
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A research article reports the results of original research, assesses its contribution to the body of knowledge in a given area, and is published in a peer-reviewed scholarly journal. The faculty publications through published and on-going articles/researches are captured in this community
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Item Optimism for the UN Proclamation of the Decade of Action on Nutrition: An African Perspective(Global Health: Science and Practice, 2016) Aryeetey, R.On Friday, April 1, 2016, the United Nations (UN) General Assembly proclaimed 2016 to 2025 as a decade of action on nutrition.1 Writing as an African living and working in sub-Saharan Africa, where up to 11% of gross domestic product (GDP) is lost to malnutrition2 and where malnutrition is declining rather too slowly for anyone’s liking, this proclamation captured my attention. Another reason this is significant for me and, I reckon, for many others is that this year also marks the beginning of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs),3 which articulate achieving zero hunger and the even more aspirational dream of ending all forms of malnutrition by the year 2030. Later this year in August in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, the Nutrition for Growth Summit will also bring more attention to efforts to eliminate malnutrition around the world. Considering these and other events con aggregating around such a short duration, it would appear to an outside observer that the world is set for a momentous delivery of something really big for nutrition.Item Assessing Project Management Maturity in Africa: A Ghanaian Perspective(International Journal of Business Administration, 2013) Ofori, D.; Deffor, E.W.The level of project management awareness and recognition of the standards and knowledge sharing among professionals is on the rise. Despite this many projects continue to fail. Ameliorating project failure requires project management maturity among practitioners. Project management maturity is the progressive development of an enterprise-wide project management approach, methodology, strategy, and decision-making process. To ascertain the level of maturity among project-oriented organizations in Ghana the following research questions were raised: Is the concept of PM maturity understood in Ghana? What are Project Management Maturity levels in Ghana? What maturity models are in use? Are there differences in project management maturity levels in industries in Ghana? The study was exploratory and utilized a questionnaire survey method to collect data on project management Maturity in Ghanaian organizations. Purposive sampling was used to select a sample of 200 managers from different economic sectors. The findings showed that differences exist in the current project management maturity levels across each phase of the project life cycle for all organizations. The study also showed that most of the practitioners expect their respective organizations to attain higher levels of project management maturity (PMM) albeit at various levels. Organizations operating in the non-profit (NGO) category exhibited relatively higher levels of maturity compared to the other categories of organizations in all five phases of the project management life cycle. Firms in the public sector of Ghana recorded low levels of maturity in most of the phases of the project management life cycle. This may be attributed to the low level of project management expertise in the sector, with possible dire consequence to the country’s development since the public sector accounts for a large percentage of projects executed in Ghana. Overall, the findings seem to indicate that project management maturity occurs in phases; PM maturity does not occur as an event but is an ongoing process that is interlinked. The implication therefore is that organisations cannot claim to be mature in one area and neglect the other; it becomes imperative for project-implementing organizations in Ghana to strive to attain maturity in all five phases of the project management life cycle to attain the full benefits of the projects they implement.Item Conference on ‘Nutrition dynamics in Africa opportunities and challenges for meeting the sustainable development goals’(Proceedings of the Nutrition Society, 2017) Aryeetey, R.; Colecraft, E.; Holdsworth, M.; et al.Although a substantial amount of nutrition research is conducted in Africa, the research agenda is mainly donor-driven. There is a clear need for a revised research agenda in Africa which is both driven by and responding to local priorities. The present paper summarises the proceedings of a symposium on how evidence can guide decision-makers towards context-appropriate priorities and decisions in nutrition. The paper focuses on lessons learned from case studies by the Evidence Informed Decision Making in Nutrition and Health Network implemented between 2015 and 2016 in Benin, Ghana, and South Africa. Activities within these countries were organised around problem-oriented evidence-informed decision-making (EIDM), capacity strengthening and leadership, and horizontal collaboration. Using a combination of desk-reviews, stakeholder influence-mapping, semi-structured interviews and convening platforms, these country-level studies demonstrated a strong interest in partnership between researchers and decision-makers, and the use of research evidence for prioritization and decision-making in nutrition. Identified capacity gaps were addressed through training workshops on EIDM, systematic reviews, cost-benefit evaluations, and evidence contextualization. Investing in knowledge partnerships and the development of capacity and leadership are key to driving the appropriate use of evidence in nutrition policy and programming in Africa.Item The Fight Against Corruption In Africa: The Role Of Women Participation In Governance And In The Labour Market(University of Ghana, 2019) Amofa, EThe controversial debate of associating women with less corruption has been extensively discussed and analyzed with cross-country, micro, and experimental data mostly for the western world. However, this assertion on the impact of women participation in governance and in the labour market on corruption has received less attention in Africa. Using the percentage of women in parliament and in the labour force as proxies for women participation in governance and in the labour market respectively, the study provides evidence on their relationship using a panel data of forty–six (46) countries in Africa for the period, 2012–2016. In accounting for endogeneity issues purported to exist in the corruption literature, the study adopted the two-step system GMM estimation technique to yield consistent and efficient estimates for the effect of women participation on corruption. Like other empirical studies, the study accounts for the regional diversities, time-invariant effects, and unobserved country-specific effects. The study provides robust evidence of a significant negative relationship between women in parliament and corruption. However, the relationship between women in the labour force and corruption was not significant. This findings suggest that women may not necessarily be innately honest but concludes that, the impact of women in fighting corruption is manifested significantly in policy making. Again, the prediction by some scholars that the negative effect of females in parliament on corruption would diminish over time because of their newness in the political space was tested with a long-run analysis. However, women participation in parliament even showed a greater significance and a higher impact on corruption. Meanwhile, other economic and institutional factors like GDP per capita, government effectiveness, press freedom, and urbanization proved to be important factors in the fight against corruption in Africa.Item Radio Redux: Audience Participation and the Reincarnation of Radio for Development in Africa(Journal of Developing Societies, 2019) Tietaah, G.; Amoakohene, M.; Tuurusong, D.Along with the valorization of “beneficiary” participation in development praxis, contemporary communication scholarship has tended toward internet-enabled technologies and applications. This study breaks ranks with the implicit loss of faith in the capacity of the so-called legacy media, and radio in particular. It argues that precisely those advances in new technologies, together with the peculiar media ecol ogy of Ghana and Africa generally, are the bases for prenotions about the enduring relevance of radio. To verify this claim, focus group discussions were conducted among radio audiences in Ghana. The findings suggest three factors for a renaissance of radio as a development communication medium: its contribution to democratic pluralism; the use of local languages that enables social inclusion; its appropriation of new technologies for audience participatory engagement. Radio has thus evolved from the powerful effects notions of a one-way transmitter of information to an increasingly more interactive, audience-centric medium.Item Application of Information and Communication Technology (ICT): A Compaative Analysis of Male and Female Academics in Africa(Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal), 2013) Owusu-Ansah, S.This study aims to investigate or verify whether gender affects the use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) facilities among academics. The study used a survey approach that involved questionnaires to solicit data from 154 academics. For the past few years, an assortment of ICT facilities such as computers, laptops, projectors, printers and many others have been available to academics for accessibility and use in collaboration, teacher-student communication, online assignment, research, teaching and learning. Using the t-test analysis, access rates and use of ICT among male and female academics was observed to be insignificant. Again, the findings revealed a significant difference between male and female academics on ‘ICT increasing collaboration with other tertiary faculty members’, ‘performing information/data management activities’ and ‘accomplishing tasks more quickly’. Strategies have been suggested to utilize ICT in educational institutions include improving on ICT infrastructure, provision of a policy environment, increasing Internet bandwidth, providing alternative power supply, improving on ICT infrastructure, enhancing ICT training programs, recruiting more ICT personnel and collaboration between academics and industry. ]Item Prevalence of asymptomatic malaria parasitaemia following mass testing and treatment in Pakro sub-district of Ghana(BMC Public Health, 2019) Ndong, I.C.; Okyere, D.; Enos, J.Y.; et al.Background: Global efforts to scale-up malaria control interventions are gaining steam. These include the use of Long-Lasting Insecticide Nets, Indoor Residual Spraying, Intermittent Preventive Treatment and Test, Treat and Track. Despite these, the drive for malaria elimination is far from being realistic in endemic communities in Africa. This is partly due to the fact that asymptomatic parasite carriage, not specifically targeted by most interventions, remains the bedrock that fuels transmission. This has led to mass testing, treatment and tracking (MTTT) as an alternative strategy to target asymptomatic individuals. We report the impact of MTTT on the prevalence of asymptomatic malaria parasitaemia over a one-year period in Ghana, hypothesizing that implementing MTTT could reduce the rate of asymptomatic parasitaemia. Methods: A population of about 5000 individuals in seven communities in the Pakro sub-district of Ghana participated in this study. A register was developed for each community following a census. MTTT engaged trained community based health volunteers who conducted house-to-house testing using RDTs every 4 months and treated positive cases with Artemisinin–based Combination Therapy. Between interventions, community-based management of malaria was implemented for symptomatic cases. Results: MTTT Coverage was 98.8% in July 2017 and 79.3% in July 2018. Of those tested, asymptomatic infection with malaria parasites reduced from 36.3% (1795/4941) in July 2017 to 32.9% (1303/3966) in July 2018 (p = 0.001). Prevalence of asymptomatic parasitaemia among children under 15 years declined from 52.6% (1043/1984) in July 2017 to 47.5% (820/1728) in July 2018 (p = 0.002). Implementing MTTT significantly reduced asymptomatic parasitaemia by 24% from July 2017 to July 2018 after adjusting for age, ITN use and axillary temperature (OR = 0.76, CI = 0.67, 0.85 p ≤ 0.001). Conclusion: This study has demonstrated that implementing MTTT is feasible and could reduce the prevalence of asymptomatic malaria parasitaemia in children under 15 years of age. Furthermore, the use of community-based health volunteers could ensure high coverage at lower cost of implementation.Item Development in astronomy and space science in Africa(Macmillan Publishers Limited, 2018) Pović, M.; Backes, M.; Baki, P.; Baratoux, D.; Tessema, S.B.; Benkhaldoun, Z.; Bode, M.; Klutse, N.A.B.; et al.The development of astronomy and space science in Africa has grown significantly over the past few years. These advancements make the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals more achievable, and open up the possibility of new beneficial collaborations.Item Barriers to chronic Hepatitis B treatment and care in Ghana: A qualitative study with people with Hepatitis B and healthcare providers(Plos One, 2019-12-03) Adjei, C.A.; Stutterheim, S.E.; Naab, F.; Ruiter, R.A.C.Background Hepatitis B viral (HBV) infection remains an important public health concern particularly in Africa. Between 1990 and 2013, Hepatitis B mortality increased by 63%. In recent times, effective antiviral agents against HBV such as Nucleos(t)ide analogs (NAs) are available. These drugs are capable of suppressing HBV replication, preventing progression of chronic Hepatitis B to cirrhosis, and reducing the risk of hepatocellular carcinoma and liver-related death. Notwithstanding, these treatments are underused despite their effectiveness in managing Hepatitis B. This study sought to explore barriers to treatment and care for people with Hepatitis B (PWHB) in Ghana, paying particular attention to beliefs about aetiology that can act as a barrier to care for PWHB. Methods We used an exploratory qualitative design with a purposive sampling technique. Face-toface interviews were conducted for 18 persons with Hepatitis B (PWHB) and 15 healthcare providers (HCP; physicians, nurses, and midwives). In addition, four focus group discussions (FGD) with a composition of eight HCPs in each group were done. Participants were recruited from one tertiary and one regional hospital in Ghana. Data were processed using QSR Nvivo version 10.0 and analysed using the procedure of inductive thematic analysis. Participants were recruited from one tertiary and one regional hospital in Ghana. Results Three main cultural beliefs regarding the aetiology of chronic Hepatitis B that act as barriers to care and treatment were identified. These were: (1) the belief that chronic Hepatitis B is a punishment from the gods to those who touch dead bodies without permission from their landlords, (2) the belief that bewitchment contributes to chronic Hepatitis B, and (3) the belief that chronic Hepatitis B is caused by spiritual poison. Furthermore, individual level barriers were identified. These were the absence of chronic Hepatitis B signs and symptoms,perceived efficacy of traditional herbal medicine, and PWHB’s perception that formal care does not meet their expectations. Health system-related barriers included high cost of hospital- based care and inadequate Hepatitis B education for patients from HCPs. Conclusion Given that high cost of hospital based care was considered an important barrier to engagement in care for PWHB, we recommend including the required Hepatitis B laboratory investigations such as viral load, and the recommended treatment in the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS). Also, we recommend increasing health care providers and PWHB Hepatitis B knowledge and capacity in a culturally sensitive fashion, discuss with patients (1) myths about aetiology and the lack of efficacy of traditional herbal medicines, and (2) patients’ expectations of care and the need to monitor even in the absence of symptoms.Item Prevalence of asymptomatic malaria parasitaemia following mass testing and treatment in Pakro sub-district of Ghana(BMC Public Health, 2019-12-03) Ndong, I.C.; Okyere, D.; Enos, J.Y.; Mensah, B.A.; Nyarko, A.; Abuaku, B.; Amambua-Ngwa, A.; Merle, C.S.C.; Koram, K.A.; Ahorlu, C.S.Background: Global efforts to scale-up malaria control interventions are gaining steam. These include the use of Long-Lasting Insecticide Nets, Indoor Residual Spraying, Intermittent Preventive Treatment and Test, Treat and Track. Despite these, the drive for malaria elimination is far from being realistic in endemic communities in Africa. This is partly due to the fact that asymptomatic parasite carriage, not specifically targeted by most interventions, remains the bedrock that fuels transmission. This has led to mass testing, treatment and tracking (MTTT) as an alternative strategy to target asymptomatic individuals. We report the impact of MTTT on the prevalence of asymptomatic malaria parasitaemia over a one-year period in Ghana, hypothesizing that implementing MTTT could reduce the rate of asymptomatic parasitaemia. Methods: A population of about 5000 individuals in seven communities in the Pakro sub-district of Ghana participated in this study. A register was developed for each community following a census. MTTT engaged trained communitybased health volunteers who conducted house-to-house testing using RDTs every 4 months and treated positive cases with Artemisinin–based Combination Therapy. Between interventions, community-based management of malaria was implemented for symptomatic cases. Results: MTTT Coverage was 98.8% in July 2017 and 79.3% in July 2018. Of those tested, asymptomatic infection with malaria parasites reduced from 36.3% (1795/4941) in July 2017 to 32.9% (1303/3966) in July 2018 (p = 0.001). Prevalence of asymptomatic parasitaemia among children under 15 years declined from 52.6% (1043/1984) in July 2017 to 47.5% (820/1728) in July 2018 (p = 0.002). Implementing MTTT significantly reduced asymptomatic parasitaemia by 24% from July 2017 to July 2018 after adjusting for age, ITN use and axillary temperature (OR = 0.76, CI = 0.67, 0.85 p ≤ 0.001). Conclusion: This study has demonstrated that implementing MTTT is feasible and could reduce the prevalence of asymptomatic malaria parasitaemia in children under 15 years of age. Furthermore, the use of community-based health volunteers could ensure high coverage at lower cost of implementation.