ghanaopendata/ghanaian-research-english huggingface dataset:
Editorial: The growth of Tropical Medicine and International Health: A developing-country perspective

Tropical Medicine and International Health's (TMIH) uniqueness is that it is published on behalf of five European institutions located in Belgium, Germany, The Netherlands, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. When it was launched in 1996, the news was received with cautious optimism, though most observers were happy that well‐established institutions in Europe were able to come together to publish a journal that would focus significantly on the field of tropical medicine and international health, as clearly reflected in the journal's name. Most developing country scientists were concerned about the workability of such a laudable project. Ten years down the line, however, TMIH has demonstrated that the project has worked well. I would therefore like to congratulate the architects of this union and the various teams who have worked hard over the years to ensure the success of the Journal, and to improve its impact factor. As stated on its website, TMIH's scope includes infectious and non‐infectious diseases, parasitology, clinical diseases and medicines of the tropics, epidemiological theory and fieldwork, medical entomology, tropical public health and community medicine at all levels from village practice, and international policy. These topics are of direct relevance to the health problems of developing countries. Hence, TMIH is contributing to priority setting and helping to galvanize health research in developing countries. As Momen (2004) states, ‘scientific journals play a central role in the dissemination of research results; at the same time, the importance of scientific publication in advancing the careers of research scientists has given them – particularly the top international journals – increased possibilities to influence priorities.’ TMIH's growth in the last 10 years was very significant especially for scientists in the developing world. Glover and Bowen (2004) look at the bibliometric profile of TMIH and examine the subject content in relation to disease coverage and geographical distribution of the authorship of papers published by TMIH between 1996 and 2003. Their analysis presents Africa with the second largest representation with 517 authored papers, second to Europe having 564 papers. Combined with Asia, developing countries altogether have a 69.9% representation. In terms of citations of papers, the authors conclude that ‘African‐authored papers have been cited most with 3512 citations.’ In terms of ratio of citations to papers by region, Africa is the second highest with a citation rate of 6.793, second to papers featuring UK authors with 8.079.

Source: UG
Education and employment outcomes in Ghana through the lens of the capability approach [Scolarisation et emploi au Ghana à travers la lunette de l’approche des capabilités]

Existing literature on education and employment confirms that in Ghana educational qualification largely influences the type of work. Through the lens of the Capability Approach, which sees human development in terms of the expansion of freedoms and opportunities, this paper identifies, for a cross-section of Ghanaians, the array of employment opportunities between and within education endowments. “Between endowments” refers to differentials in opportunities for individuals with different levels of educational qualifications, while “within endowments” considers the differentials for individuals with the same level of education. The source of data is the 2005/06 Ghana Living Standard Survey (GLSS5). Results show that education is not enough to erase inequalities. Multinomial regression analysis demonstrates that functionings differ according to the individual’s context, household and personal conversion factors. This is explained by inequalities in the requirements for a particular job (between educational endowments) and by job accessibility due to personal characteristics (within educational endowments). © 2014, Union for African Population Studies. All rights reserved.

Source: UG
Education and health care policies in ghana: Examining the prospects and challenges of recent provisions

Education and health care policies in Ghana since independence have been universalist in approach providing free universal health care and free basic and tertiary education until the early 1980s. Precipitated primarily by a severe drought, stagnant economic growth, mismanagement, and political instability, Ghana undertook major economic reforms with prodding from the World Bank and International Monetary Fund in a bid to salvage the economy. These economic measures included cost recovery and cutback spending in education and health sectors. However, in recent years, purposive targeted interventions have been pursued to address inequalities in education and health care. These new programs include the Education Capitation Grant, school feeding program, and the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), which are propelling Ghana toward the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals. The prospects of these programs in addressing disparities in access to education and health care in the country and recommendations for improved delivery are discussed. © The Author(s) 2015.

Source: UG
Education and Socio-economic status are key factors infuencing use of insecticides and malaria knowledge in rural farmers in Southern Côte d’Ivoire

The Department of Parasitology conducts research into parasitic diseases of public health importance with the overall goal of reducing their transmission and the heavy disease burden that they impose on affected populations. The Department maintains focus on parasitic diseases in general. These include major diseases such as malaria, and others listed under the Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTD) control initiative such as, lymphatic filariasis, onchocerciasis, schistosomiasis, soil-transmitted helminthiasis, trypanosomiasis and leishmaniasis.

Source: UG
Education and training for medicines development, regulation and clinical research in emerging countries

The aim of this satellite workshop held at the 17th World Congress of Basic and Clinical Pharmacology (WCP2014) was to discuss the needs, optimal methods and practical approaches for extending education teaching of medicines development, regulation and clinical research to Low and Middle Income Countries (LMIC's). It was generally agreed that, for efficiently treating the rapidly growing number of patients suffering from noncommunicable diseases, modern drug therapy has to become available more widely and with a shorter time lag in these countries. To achieve this goal many additional experts working in medicines development, regulation and clinical research have to be trained in parallel. The competence-oriented educational programs designed within the framework of the European Innovative Medicine Initiative-PharmaTrain (IMI-PhT) project were developed with the purpose to cover these interconnected fields. In addition, the programs can be easily adapted to the various local needs, primarily due to their modular architecture and well defined learning outcomes. Furthermore, the program is accompanied by stringent quality assurance standards which are essential for providing internationally accepted certificates. Effective cooperation between international and local experts and organizations, the involvement of the industry, health care centers and governments is essential for successful education. The initiative shouldalso support the development of professional networks able to manage complex health care strategies. In addition it should help establish cooperation between neighboring countries for jointly managing clinical trials, as well as complex regulatory and ethical issues. © 2015 Kerpel-fronius, Rosenkranz, Allen, Bass, Demotes_mainard, Dodoo, Dubois, Hela, Kern, Massud, Silva and Whitty.

Source: UG
Education dimensions relevant to successful electronic levy mobilization in resource-rich yet poor countries in Africa

First and foremost, the study explored why countries in Africa are rich in natural resources yet resort to e-levy legislation for more revenues. In addition, the study investigated dimensions of education needed to facilitate successful mobili zation of e-levy revenue in resource -rich yet poor countries in Africa. Qualitative exploratory design, semi-structured interviews, judgmental and snowball sampling techniques were used for the study. Twelve (12) scholars from US (N = 3), Uganda (N = 3) Canada (N = 3), Ghana (N = 3) were interrogated. The paper was guided by the natural resource-cursed and social learning theories. Thematic analyses were used to analyse the data. It was found that although African countries are rich in natural resources yet they face challenges generating revenue from natural resources due to mismanagement, poor leadership and weak governance. They also find it difficult to mobilize revenues from e-levy too because of the informal nature of the econ omy, lack of financial inclusion, corruption, the disinterest of the public in the e-levy legislation as well as inadequate education on the e-levy concept. But the advanced economies are successful in generating revenue from e-levy. Proactive leadership and governance in managing natural resources, addressing mismanagement, and dealing with corruption and its negative effects are required to make things happen in Africa. African economies need to be more formalised and financial inclusion deepened. Proper accounting of state revenues to the citizenry must be enforced. E-levy education, civic education, digital literacy, ethics and legal education, can significantly contribute to the success of e-levy revenue generation in Africa.

Source: UG
Education for librarianship and information science in Ghana

In Africa, as in other developing countries, the necessity to train people for work in librarianship has followed closely the establishment and development of libraries. Whatever the pat- tern in the years ahead, however, * 'the library profession in West Africa will forever be indebted to the efforts of those far-seeing librarians who in- spired their associates with some of their own vision and zeal and laid the foundation on which library education could be built in this part of the world

Source: UG
Education Inequality in Ghana: Gender and Spatial Dimensions

Purpose - The paper examines the nature and extent of gender and spatial inequalities in educational attainment in Ghana. Design/methodology/approach - The paper uses the education Gini coefficient, computed on the basis of years of schooling of individuals, to assess education inequality in Ghana. Findings - The paper finds evidence of gender and spatial inequality in education in Ghana. In particular, the three northern regions have lower education attainment as well as higher education Gini coefficients compared to the rest of the country. The paper finds evidence of intra-gender and intra-spatial inequalities in education attainment in Ghana, with females contributing proportionately more to the within-inequality component of the education Gini. The paper also finds a positive correlation between poverty incidence and education inequality. Research limitations/implications - The research finds a positive correlation between poverty incidence and education inequality but requires an econometric analysis to make inferences regarding causality. Practical implications - The findings call for the design and implementation of policies not only to address between-gender and spatial inequities in education in Ghana, but also to tackle within-gender and within-spatial inequalities. The positive correlation between poverty incidence and education inequality implies the need to create greater equity in educational opportunities across the country. Originality/value - One important and new finding of the paper is the existence of intra-gender and intra-spatial inequalities in education attainment in Ghana, with females contributing proportionately more to the within-inequality component of the education Gini.

Source: UG
Education News

The International Federation of Nurse Anesthetists (IFNA) is a federation of 45 national anesthesia organizations. Among its activities are setting global standards for anesthesia practice, patient monitoring, and anesthesia education, as well as creating a code of ethics. This article focuses on the use of its education standards as the foundation for the International Federation of Nurse Anesthetists' Anesthesia Program Approval Process. The approval process strongly encourages educational institutions throughout the world to improve the education of nurse anesthetists and other nonphysician anesthetists, with the ultimate goal being patient safety. The approval process also promotes the use of nurses to administer anesthesia whenever adequate resources are available. Copyright© by the American Association of Nurse Anesthetists.

Source: UG
Education subsidy and school enrollments in rural Ghana

This paper examines how education subsidy to basic schools has affected school enrollment in rural Ghana. The quest to achieve Universal Primary Education led to the introduction of the Free Compulsory Universal Basic Education policy in the mid-1990s, abolishing all fees in basic schools. The question then is, to what extent have those spending increases been effective in reaching poorest households? Combining the willingness-to-pay literature with benefit incidence analysis, the results indicate that basic schooling in rural Ghana is generally progressive with benefits more equally distributed than household expenditures.

Source: UG
Education, skills, and duration of unemployment in Ghana

The unmatched growth in available jobs, given the rising youth popula tion, is a major concern for policymakers in sub-Saharan African countries (SSAs), particularly Ghana. The weakness in the link between education and the needed skill by the industry, has been labelled as the cause of rising unemployment and prolonged unemployment duration in Ghana. This paper presents new evidence on the effect of education and skill—language, computer and numeracy skills—on unemployment duration in Ghana using the Skill Towards Employment and Productivity (STEP) skill dataset collected by the World Bank in 2013. The study employs Cox’s Proportional Hazard Model to examine the effect of education, language, computer and numeracy skill on unemployment duration. We found that education reduces the duration of unemployment in general. However, the effect is higher for exiting salaried work compared to self-employed jobs. Proficiency in computer, English or Ewe reduces the duration of unemployment. In particular, we observe that individuals highly skilled in computer use are 34.4% more likely to exit unemployment compared to those without computer skills. Interestingly, the effect of computer skills is through channels other than formal education.

Source: UG
Education, skills, and duration of unemployment in Ghana

bstract: The unmatched growth in available jobs, given the rising youth popula tion, is a major concern for policymakers in sub-Saharan African countries (SSAs), particularly Ghana. The weakness in the link between education and the needed skill by the industry, has been labelled as the cause of rising unemployment and prolonged unemployment duration in Ghana. This paper presents new evidence on the effect of education and skill—language, computer and numeracy skills—on unemployment duration in Ghana using the Skill Towards Employment and Productivity (STEP) skill dataset collected by the World Bank in 2013. The study employs Cox’s Proportional Hazard Model to examine the effect of education, language, computer and numeracy skill on unemployment duration. We found that education reduces the duration of unemployment in general. However, the effect is higher for exiting salaried work compared to self-employed jobs. Proficiency in computer, English or Ewe reduces the duration of unemployment. In particular, we observe that individuals highly skilled in computer use are 34.4% more likely to exit unemployment compared to those without computer skills. Interestingly, the effect of computer skills is through channels other than formal education.

Source: UG
Education: Pathway to Empowerment for Ghanaian Women?

Education has long been seen as crucial to women’s empowerment. Increasingly, however, scholars such as Stromquist have questioned our faith in the power of education to empower women. Drawing on a survey of 600 women of three age groups in three regions of Ghana and 36 intergenerational interviews, this article makes the case that the benefits of education for women is context specific, for example when decent work in the public sector is available. This study shows that more than twice as many women aged 18-29 have had some form of education compared with those above 50. However, it finds that while all the women above 50 who worked in the formal sector worked in better paying public sector jobs, this was not the case of the women aged 18-29, almost half of whom worked in the private informal sector with more insecure incomes.

Source: UG
Educational status and beliefs regarding non-communicable diseases among children in Ghana

Background: Increasing prevalence of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) has been observed in Ghana as in other developing countries. Past research focused on NCDs among adults. Recent researches, however, provide evidence on NCDs among children in many countries, including Ghana. Beliefs about the cause of NCDs among children may be determined by the socioeconomic status of parents and care givers. This paper examines the relationship between educational status of parents and/or care givers of children with NCDs on admission and their beliefs regarding NCDs among children. Methods: A total of 225 parents and/or care givers of children with NCDS hospitalized in seven hospitals in three regions (Greater Accra, Ashanti and Volta) were selected for the study. Statistical techniques, including the chi-square and multinomial logistic regression, were used for the data analysis. Results: Educational status is a predictor of care giver’s belief about whether enemies can cause NCDs among children or not. This is the only belief with which all the educational categories have significant relationship. Also, post-secondary/polytechnic (p-value =0.029) and university (p-value = 0.009) levels of education are both predictors of care givers being undecided about the belief that NCDs among children can be caused by enemies, when background characteristics are controlled for. Significant relationship is found between only some educational categories regarding the other types of beliefs and NCDs among children. For example, those with Middle/Juniour Secondary School (JSS)/Juniour High School (JHS) education are significantly undecided about the belief that the sin of parents can cause NCDs among children. Conclusions: Education is more of a predictor of the belief that enemies can cause NCDs among children than the other types of beliefs. Some categories of ethnicity, residential status and age have significant relationship with the beliefs when background characteristics of the parents and/or care givers were controlled for.

Source: UG
The efect of heavy metals and physicochemical variables on benthic macroinvertebrate community structure in a tropical urban coastal lagoon

Benthic macroinvertebrates are key bioindicators of pollution and an important component of food chains on wetlands. Here, we investigated the efect of heavy metals and physicochemical variables on the benthic macroinvertebrates community struc ture in a tropical urban coastal lagoon in Ghana which is known for its importance in the support of migratory waterbirds. Sediment samples were collected from seven diferent sites in the lagoon and analyzed for heavy metals. The physicochemi cal characteristics of the overlying water, sediment organic matter and silt/clay content were determined at these sites. The benthic macroinvertebrates abundance, species richness and diversity at each of the sites were further determined. The results indicated low levels of Zn, Cr, Pb, Cu and Cd in the lagoon with chironomids being the dominant benthic macroinvertebrates. Overall, the benthic macroinvertebrates community structure was not afected by the levels of heavy metals as toxic units were less than one. The benthic macroinvertebrates community structure was generally infuenced by the dissolved oxygen, temperature levels of the overlying water, silt/clay and organic matter in the sediment. Increased benthic macroinvertebrates abundance was associated with lower water temperatures and elevated levels of silt/clay and organic matter in the sediment.

Source: UG
Efect of iron fortifcation on anaemia and risk of malaria among Ghanaian pre-school children with haemoglobinopathies and diferent ABO blood groups

The Department of Immunology conducts research in the field of immunology of infectious and non-infectious diseases. The Department has the overall goal of contributing knowledge to better diagnosis, management, control and prevention of infectious and non-infectious diseases in Ghana and worldwide. This is consistent with the overall strategy of the Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research (NMIMR) and in line with the strategy of the College of Health Sciences of the University of Ghana.

Source: UG
The Efect of Kaizen on Performance: Evidence from Manufacturing Enterprises in Ghana

Between 2012 and 2017, a number of manufacturing enterprises of varying sizes in Ghana participated in a programme that trained and guided them to implement Kaizen practices with the objective of improving their productivity and performance. This study sought to evaluate the impact of the programme by mainly using the difference-in-difference method. The results show that the programme led to a positive and significant impact on FM performance, particularly with respect to sales and profts, and for some of the frms, an improvement in labour productivity as well. We found further that whether a FM experienced this impact appears to depend on the size of the FM and the calibre of the consultant who delivered the training. The Findings generally suggest that an extensive promotion of Kaizen as a management technique among a broad spectrum of manufacturing enterprises could yield substantial benefits for the enterprises and the national economy

Source: UG
Efect of mobile phone‑based health insurance contribution payment system on retention of coverage in the National Health Insurance Scheme in Ghana: an evaluation study

Background Ghana introduced a mobile phone-based contribution payment system in its national health insurance scheme (NHIS) in December 2018 to improve the process of enrolment. We evaluated the effect of this digital health intervention on retention of coverage in the Scheme, one year after its implementation. Methods We used NHIS enrolment data for the period, 1 December 2018–31 December 2019. Descriptive statistics and propensity-score matching method were performed to examine a sample of 57,993 members’ data. Results Proportion of members who renewed their membership in the NHIS via the mobile phone-based contribution payment system increased from 0% to 8.5% whilst those who did so through the ofce-based system only grew from 4.7% to 6.4% over the study period. The chance of renewing membership was higher by 17.4 percentage points for users of the mobile phone-based contribution payment system, compared to those who used the office-based contribution payment system. The effect was greater for the informal sector workers, males and the unmarried. Conclusions The mobile phone-based health insurance renewal system is improving coverage in the NHIS particularly for members who hitherto were less likely to renew their membership. Policy makers need to devise an innovative way for new members and all member categories to enroll using this payment system to accelerate progress towards attainment of universal health coverage. Further study needs to be conducted using mixed-method design with inclusion of more variables.

Source: UG