Background: Injury is one of the major causes of death and illness among children and adolescents worldwide. We sought to investigate the prevalence of serious injury and its associated factors among in-school adolescents in eight countries in sub-Saharan Africa.Methods: A sample of 14,967 in-school adolescents was drawn from the Global School-based Student Health Surveys conducted from 2012 to 2017 in eight sub-Saharan African countries. Data were collected using self-administered structured questionnaires. The prevalence of serious injuries was calculated using proportions while multivariable binary logistic regression analysis was carried out to determine the factors associated with serious injuries.Results: Approximately 45% of in-school adolescents had experienced serious injuries during the past 12 months to the survey in the eight sub-Saharan African countries, with variations from 32.3% in Mauritius to 68.2% in Liberia. Adolescents who experienced bullying [aOR = 2.37, CI = 2.10, 2.68], those who engaged in physical fight [aOR = 2.14, CI = [1.87, 2.44], those who experienced an attack [aOR = 1.96, CI = [1.73, 2.22], those who felt anxious [aOR = 1.47, CI = 1.22,1.77], those who attempted suicide [aOR = 1.38, CI = 1.14, 1.65], truants [aOR = 1.33, CI = [1.17,1.51], current tobacco users [aOR = 1.42, CI = [1.01, 2.01] and current marijuana users [aOR = 1.78, CI = 1.08, 2.93] had higher odds of experiencing serious injuries. However, those whose parents or guardians respected their privacy had lower odds of experiencing serious injuries [aOR =0.78, CI = [0.68, 0.88] compared to those whose parents or guardians did not respect their privacy.Conclusion: A relatively high prevalence of serious injuries among in-school adolescents was identified in the eight sub-Saharan African countries studied. Programs and interventions that target the reduction of injuries in educational institutions should take a keen interest in the factors identified in this study. To deal with injury victims, first aid services should be provided in school settings.

It is important in water resource planning to accurately estimate the spatial distribution of evapotranspiration (ET) as an input parameter for hydrological studies. Although, conventional pan evaporation, lysimetric and eddy covariance techniques have been used, they only estimate point values. Hence, this study aimed at estimating the spatial distribution of ET within the Pra River Basin (a forest ecological zone) of Ghana, using cloud-free Landsat 8 (OLI/TIRS) satellite images employing the SEBAL methodology. The study further estimates the spatial distribution ET in relation to major climatic variables, Land Use Land Cover (LULC) types and energy balance components. The overall spatial distribution of ET had a mean value of 5.63 mm/day. Spatial distribution of ET (mm/day) for water body (5.51–7.81) and uncultivated forest (5.10–7.71) were high, while moderately average values were observed for logged forest (4.80–7.51). Settlement and bare landscapes observed low rates ((2.05–5.10) mm/day). Spatially, ET was higher in the upper western, central and the eastern parts of the basin, but lower in the northern part and pockets of areas at the southern part of the basin where settlement/bare landscape and logged forest dominate. Areas with high temperature and high solar radiation experiences high ET, while low wind speed, low to average temperature and solar radiation areas experience low ET. Also, areas with both high net radiation and ground heat flux but low to average sensible heat flux experiences high ET and vice versa. Linear regression analysis showed good fit with slope of 0.76 and R2 of 0.93 indicating that 93 % of the variations in observed field measurement of ET fitted perfectly well with ET distributions generated by the SEBAL model.