Background. Healthcare workers are at high risk of occupational exposure to needle stick injury worldwide. Occupational exposure to needle stick injury represents the most common sources of infection such as hepatitis B virus, hepatitis C virus, and human immunodeficiency virus. Thus, this review aimed to determine the career time and previous one-year global pooled prevalence of occupational exposure to needle stick injury among healthcare workers. Methods. The review considered articles written in English language and published from 2012 to 2020. The articles were searched using nine electronic databases (PubMed, Google Scholar, CINAHL, MEDLINE, Cochrane library, Web of Science, SCOPUS, MedNar, and ScienceDirect) using a combination of Boolean logic operators (AND, OR, and NOT), Medical Subject Headings, and keywords. Quality assessment was performed to determine the relevance of the articles using Joanna Briggs Institute critical appraisal tools. Several steps of assessment and evaluation were taken to select and analyze the relevant articles. Results. The worldwide pooled prevalence of needle stick injuries among healthcare workers during career time and previous one year was 56.2 (95 CI: 47.1, 64.9) and 32.4 (95 CI: 22.0, 44.8), respectively. The career time pooled prevalence of needle stick injuries based on the socioeconomic development and study area was 54.8 and 55.1, respectively, and one-year pooled prevalence of needle stick injury was 26.0 and 20.9. Conclusion. The review found a high prevalence of occupational exposure to needle stick injury among healthcare workers and suggests the need to improve occupational health and safety services in the healthcare systems.

Background. Occupational exposure to blood and body fluids has become a serious public health problem for healthcare workers and is a major risk for the transmission of various infections such as human immune-deficiency virus, hepatitis B virus, and hepatitis C virus. This systematic review and meta-analysis aims to determine the career time and previous one-year global pooled prevalence of occupational exposure to blood and body fluids among healthcare workers. Methods. For the review, the articles published in English were searched using the electronic databases (SCOPUS/Science Direct, PubMed, Web of Science, Google Scholar, CINAHL, MEDLINE, Cochrane Library, DOAJ, and MedNar) with a combination of Boolean logic operators (AND, OR, and NOT), Medical Subject Headings (MeSH), and keywords. A quality assessment was conducted to determine the relevance of the articles using JBI critical appraisal tools. Furthermore, several steps of assessment and evaluation were taken to select and analyze the relevant articles. Results. Of the 3912 articles identified through the electronic database search, 33 that met the inclusion criteria were included in the final analysis. The current study found that the global pooled prevalence of blood and body fluids among healthcare workers during career time and in the previous one year accounted for 56.6 (95 CI: 47.3, 65.4) and 39.0 (95 CI: 32.7, 45.7), respectively. Based on subgroup analysis by publication year, survey year, and World Health Organization regions, the highest prevalence of blood and body fluid exposure in the last 12 months was observed among articles published between 2004 and 2008 (66.3), conducted between 2003 and 2008 (66.6), and conducted in the Southeast Asia Region (46.9). The highest career time prevalence was 60.6, 71.0, and 68.4 for articles published between 2015 and 2020, conducted between 2015 and 2019, and reported in the African region, respectively. Conclusion. The current study revealed a high prevalence of occupational exposure to blood and body fluids among healthcare workers and suggests the need to improve occupational health and safety services in healthcare systems globally.

This article considers the degree to which achieving equity in Global North–South research partnerships is possible under current UK funding models. While there has been significant discussion with respect to the decolonisation of research, it will be argued that there is some distance between the language of equity articulated currently by UK funding bodies, and the realities of working as a project partner in the Global South. The article draws on the prior and ongoing experiences of a multidisciplinary team of researchers brought together by a UK-funded research project. In the interests of moving towards more equitable systems of knowledge production and dissemination, it explores the power asymmetries that can be inherent in Global North–South research partnerships, and the extent to which issues of coloniality continue to shape aspects of research agenda setting, project framing, impact, academic publishing and the division of labour within partnerships.

Understanding the resilience of water supplies to climate change is becoming an urgent priority to ensure health targets are met. Addressing systemic issues and building the resilience of community-managed supplies, which serve millions of people in rural LMIC settings, will be critical to improve access to safe drinking water. The How Tough is WASH (HTIW) framework to assess resilience was applied to community-managed water supplies in Ethiopia and Nepal to assess the effectiveness of this framework in field conditions. The resilience of these water supplies was measured along six domains—the environment, infrastructure, management, institutional support, community governance and supply chains—that can affect how they respond to climate change effects. We found that the HTIW framework provided an objective measure of resilience and could be used to rank water supplies in order of priority for action. We also found that systemic issues could be identified. The tools and methods used in the framework were easy to deploy by field research teams. The water supplies studied in Ethiopia and Nepal had low to moderate resilience to climate change. Service management and institutional support were weak in both countries. The data from Ethiopia and Nepal suggests that many water supplies in rural and small-town communities are unlikely to be resilient to future climate change without increased investment and support. The use of simple frameworks such as HTIW will be important in supporting decisions around such investments by identifying priority communities and actions.

Background: Globally, acute respiratory infections are among the leading causes of under-five child mortality, especially in lower-income countries; it is associated with indoor exposure to toxic pollutants from solid biomass fuel. In Ethiopia, 90% of the population utilizes solid biomass fuel; respiratory illness is a leading health problem. However, there is a paucity of nationally representative data on the association of household cooking place and respiratory infections. Besides, evidence on the variability in the infection based on the data collected at different times is limited. Therefore, this study is intended to assess the association of food cooking place with acute respiratory infections and the variability in households and surveys. Methods: The current analysis is based on the Ethiopian Demographic and Health Survey data collected in 2005, 2011, and 2016 and obtained via online registration. The association of food cooking place with acute respiratory infection was assessed using multilevel modeling after categorizing all factors into child level and survey level, controlling them in a full model. The analyses accounted for a complex survey design using a Stata command “svy.” Result: A total of 30,895 under-five children were included in this study, of which 3677 (11.9%) children had an acute respiratory infection, with 12.7% in 2005, 11.9% in 2011, and 11.1% in 2016. The risk of having an infection in under-five children in households that cooked food outdoors was 44% lower (AOR = 0.56, 95% CI = 0.40, 0.75) compared to those households that cooked the food inside the house. There was a statistically significant difference among the children among surveys to have an acute respiratory infection. Conclusion: The risk of having children with acute respiratory infection is lower in the households of cooking food outdoor compared to indoor. The infection difference in different surveys suggests progress in the practices in either food cooking places or the fuel types used that minimize food cooking places location or the fuel types used that minimizes the risk. But, the infection is still high; therefore, measures promoting indoor cooking in a well-ventilated environment with alternative energy sources should take place.

Background: Of the 6.2 million estimated deaths of children under 15 years of age globally, the death toll of children under 5 years of age accounted for 5.3 million. In Ethiopia, even though significant progress has been made, facility-based research shows that the mortality rate of children under 5 is still high. In the country, particularly in the eastern part, evidence on trends in under-five mortality and associated factors from population-based longitudinal data is limited. Objective: The objective of the study was to assess under-five mortality focusing on the trends and associated factors based on 2008–2016 data in Kersa Health and Demographic Surveillance Site, Eastern Ethiopia. The method: The study was based on 9 years of surveillance data. The surveillance site was founded in 2007 with the aim of producing community-based health and demographic data in the eastern Ethiopia. Data were collected from the surveillance site and analyzed with STATA version 15 (for factor analysis) and/or Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 26 (for trend analysis) and Microsoft (MS) Excel software. The autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) model and Mann–Kendall were used to analyze mortality trends. Multi-level logistic regression was used to assess the associated factors. Result: There were a total of 18 759 newborns in the surveillance sites, of which 1602 died of children under 5 years of age, and the total mortality rate for children under 5 years of age was 85 per 1000 live births. Trend analysis shows that the mortality rate of children under 5 has been steadily declining during the study period. Multi-level logistic regression shows that the variance of the random component model related to the intercept term is statistically significant, which means that there is a change in the mortality rate of children under 5 between the survey years, which is explained by the random intercept term. Antenatal care visits by mothers (AOR = .61, 95% CI = .49, .74), primary education (AOR = .58, 95% CI = .49, .68), normal birth weight (AOR = .78, 95% CI = .64, .95), and having 2 or fewer total births (AOR = .37, 95% CI = .22, .37) were all associated with child death. Conclusion: Despite the downward trend, the mortality rate of children under 5 years old at the surveillance sites is high. Effective intervention measures should be implemented.