Posted 10/01/2020. Our ethnography aimed to describe Nairobi\u2019s inpatient newborn wards and the busy lives of the nurses who work there. They work long hours with little supervision in ill-designed wards, staffed by far too few nurses given the pressing need. Under these difficult conditions, the collective model of nursing that develops reduces nurses\u2019 exposure to stress and anxiety. Jacob McKnight and colleagues describe how these coping methods have implications for the quality of care and limit the potential for a patient-centred approach.
\n \n\n \n \nPosted 22/02/2021. Paper continues to be an important medium for recording inpatient care in low\u2010 and middle\u2010income countries. Naomi Muinga and colleagues synthesise evidence on how paper\u2010based nursing records have been developed within inpatient settings to support documentation of nursing care, and that a human\u2010centred design approach might better meet users' needs
\n \n\n \n \nPosted 25/03/2022. Alun Davies and colleagues used Participatory Video (PV) to explore how engagement with researchers influenced Kenyan school students\u2019 perceptions of research and aspirations. PV highlighted the complex context in which engagement is situated where students\u2019 time and attention is competed for against curricular, extracurricular, and social-cultural factors. We emphasise the importance of ensuring that engagement benefits students.
\n \n\n \n \nPosted 11/11/2022. In this study, Timothy Tuti and colleagues discuss the characteristics of a neonatal inpatient dataset from a network of Kenyan hospitals that allows for exploration of trends in performance and could support better impact evaluation, exploration of links between health system inputs and outcomes, and scrutiny of variation in quality of hospital care.
\n \n\n \n \nPosted 26/01/2021. Appropriate and well-resourced medical internship training is important to ensure psychological health and well-being of doctors in training and also to recruit and retain these doctors. Yingxi Zhao and colleagues identified and described a large number of tools designed for measuring medical internship experience, to help medical educators and human resource managers make an evidence-based decision on designing surveys to understand interns\u2019 experience of training.
\n \n\n \n \nPosted 19/01/2022. Rita Njeru, Sassy Molyneux and colleagues examine the role of community health workers in supporting post-discharge recovery in young undernourished children. The authors argue that a targeted and multi-pronged approach initiated before or on discharge is needed, supported by clear guidance and training. The ways in which any new tasks or personnel are incorporated into hospital and broader health system hierarchies and systems need careful planning and tracking.
\n \n\n \n \nPosted 23/07/2021. Effective management and leadership are essential for everyday health system resilience, but health managers are often under-prepared and under-supported in these roles. Particular challenges have been observed in communication skills, emotional competence and supportive oversight. Jacinta Nzinga and colleagues share their learning from implementing a package of leadership development interventions in Kenya
\n \n\n \n \nPosted 28/04/2021. While Health and Demographic Surveillance Systems (HDSS) involving verbal autopsy provide essential data on deaths, births and other health-related events in LMICs where alternative sources are limited, Vicki Marsh and colleagues argue that current regulatory frameworks do not sufficiently recognise their nature as a form of non-traditional epidemiological research. Ethical challenges include risks of uncompensated burdens that alternative regulatory approaches may more successfully identify.
\n \n\n \n \nPosted 03/09/2020. Cian Wade, Mike English and colleagues brought together a large body of evidence to inform recommendations for Kenya on neonatal analgesic guidelines for routine procedures. They describe the process by which a group of local experts translated systematic review and meta-analysis findings into context-specific clinical guidelines. The work emphasises the value of breastfeeding or breast milk as an important and feasible therapeutic strategy for alleviating neonatal pain.
\n \n\n \n \nPosted 17/05/2022. In this study, leveraging a Kenyan Clinical Information Network, Timothy Tuti, Mike English and colleagues set out to evaluate at the clinical team level, if and how a comprehensive healthcare-specific feedback theory used to design and implement pharmacists-championed feedback strategies could help improve medication prescribing accuracy during inpatient neonatal care.
\n \n\n \n \nPosted 05/08/2022. During a rapidly unfolding catastrophic pandemic, research is most needed to inform on nature, containment and prevention of the pandemic. Ethics review and regulatory authorities are important gatekeepers for research, and can facilitate scientifically rigorous and ethically sound relevant research. Alex Hinga, Dorcas Kamuya and colleagues examined how research review was undertaken during COVID19 in one of the review systems in Kenya, factors that enabled and/or hindered accelerated review including the political landscape, and make some recommendations for review systems in LMICs.
\n \n\n \n \nPosted 23/09/2022. Peter Macharia and colleagues propose a geostatistical modelling framework that accounts for the uncertainty in the residence location of students from school-based infection sample surveys when only school location data are available. The proposed framework offers inferential benefits by leveraging spatial access and school catchment models to improve standard geostatistical approaches.
\n \n\n \n \nPosted 29/07/2022. Ring-stages are the predominant parasite forms detected in the blood of humans infected with Plasmodium falciparum. Fauzia Musasia, Faith Osier and colleagues found that their active destruction through antibody-dependent phagocytosis predicted how well individuals responded to an experimental malaria infection. Targeting ring-stages may limit exponential parasite multiplication and prevent the progression to clinical malaria
\n \n\n \n \nPosted 06/07/2022. Chikungunya Virus (CHIKV) has been associated with neurological illness in many parts of the world, but there have been no reports of CHIKV-associated neurological illness in Africa. This study by Doris Nyamwaya and George Warimwe reveals that CHIKV infections are relatively more common than cerebral malaria and bacterial meningitis among children hospitalized with neurological disease in coastal Kenya, and systematic surveillance should be an urgent priority.
\n \n\n \n \nPosted 17/06/2022. Reducing the devastating impact of COVID-19 requires the use of best available evidence to inform responses. Fatuma Guleid, Edwine Barasa and Researchers at the KEMRI-Wellcome Trust carried out knowledge translation (KT) activities to support national COVID-19 policy-making. In the study, we describe our experiences and the impact of KT in responding to public health crises.
\n \n\n \n \nPosted 17/05/2022. In this study, Margaret Nampijja, Agnes Mutua, Sarah Atkinson and colleagues found that lower maternal and infant hemoglobin levels were associated with reduced psychomotor scores at 15 months, and lower infant hemoglobin levels were associated with reduced language scores. These findings emphasize the importance of managing maternal and child anemia.
\n \n\n \n \nPosted 06/05/2022. Animal studies suggest an important role of iron in neurodevelopment. In this systematic review, Agnes Mutua, Sarah Atkinson and colleagues found limited evidence for the effects of iron supplementation on neurodevelopment in African children despite the high burden of iron deficiency in this population. Further well-conducted studies are needed.
\n \n\n \n \nPosted 12/04/2022. Evidence on the costs of delivering COVID-19 vaccines are useful inputs in planning for resource mobilization, and can inform vaccine priority setting decisions. Stacey Orangi, Edwine Barasa and colleagues present the unit costs of procuring and delivering the COVID-19 vaccine in Kenya across various vaccination strategies. These cost estimates can be used to inform local policy and may further inform parameters used in cost-effectiveness models.
\n \n\n \n \nPosted 08/04/2022. Kwashiorkor, a type of severe malnutrition associated with oedema, has been known for centuries but its mechanism remains elusive. This research by Jay Berkley and colleagues confirmed that low plasma albumin levels are necessary but not sufficient for oedema formation. Our findings suggest that lymphatic drainage may be impaired, which is a new discovery.
\n \n\n \n \nPosted 18/03/2022. Steven Wambua and colleagues analysed monthly reports on utilization of outpatient and immunization services between Jan-2018 and Mar-2021 by all health facilities in Kenya to quantify the impact of COVID-19 on the utilization of the health services. Data was obtained from the District Health Information Software 2 (DHIS 2). We observed varied effects of the pandemic, with significant drops in attendance for most outpatient services while immunisation services remained unaffected.
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