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Introduction: Research has demonstrated benefits of social capital on depression, but variations in this relationship by geographic characteristics such as urbanicity have rarely been investigated. Methods: Using survey data on 4,209 Ghanaian and 3,148 South African adults aged 50 and above from the World Health Organization (WHO) Study on Global AGEing and Adult Health (SAGE), exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were conducted to extract dimensions of social capital from survey items. Structural equation models with the extracted factors were then used to estimate the associations between social capital and depression in each sample and assess differences between urban and rural settings with measurement and structural invariance tests. Results: Factor analyses suggested three dimensions of social capital representing community engagement, sociability, and trust. Urbanicity did not substantially modify the effects of social capital on depression in either setting, but urban-rural differences in the measurement and level of social capital were observed. Urban Ghanaian older adults were less socially integrated and trusting than older rural residents (standardized mean difference: -0.28, -0.24, and -0.38 for community engagement, sociability, and trust, respectively) while urban South African older adults appeared less engaged in community activities but significantly more trusting and socially active informally than older rural residents (standardized mean difference: -0.33, 0.30, and 0.17 for community engagement, sociability, and trust, respectively). Moreover, while trust was associated with a lower risk of depression in South Africa overall, sociability and trust were associated with an increased risk of depression in Ghana. Conclusions: Results indicate that the composition and average levels of social capital differ between urban and rural older adult residents in Ghana and South Africa although urban-rural differences in the strength of the association between social capital and depression were not substantial. Furthermore, the associations between social capital and depression are context-specific and are not uniformly beneficial. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Knowledge of urogenital schistosomiasis can empower individuals to limit surface water contact and participate in mass drug administration campaigns, but nothing is currently known about the schistosomiasis knowledge that schoolchildren have in Ghana. We developed and implemented a survey tool aiming to assess the knowledge of urogenital schistosomiasis (treatment, transmission, prevention, symptoms) among science teaches and primary and junior high school students in the Eastern Region of Ghana. Methods: We developed a 22-question knowledge survey tool and administered it to 875 primary and 938 junior high school students from 74 schools in 37 communities in the Eastern Region of Ghana. Teachers (n = 57) answered 20 questions matched to student questions. We compared knowledge scores (as percent of correct answers) across topics, gender, and class year and assessed associations with teacher’s knowledge scores using t-tests, chi-squared tests, univariate, and multivariate linear regression, respectively. Results: Students performed best when asked about symptoms (mean±SD: 76±21% correct) and prevention (mean±SD: 69±25% correct) compared with transmission (mean±SD: 50±15% correct) and treatment (mean±SD: 44±23% correct) (p<0.0005). Teachers performed best on prevention (mean±SD: 93±12% correct, p<0.0005) and poorest on treatment (mean±SD: 69±16% correct, p<0.001). When listing five facts about urogenital schistosomiasis, teachers averaged 2.9±1.2 correct. Multiple regression models suggest that gender, class year, teacher score, and town of residency explain ~27% of variability in student scores. On average, junior high school students outperformed primary school students by 10.2 percentage points (CI95%: 8.6–11.8); boys outperformed girls by 3.5 percentage points (CI95%: 2.3–4.7). Conclusions: Our survey parsed four components of student and teacher knowledge. We found strong knowledge in several realms, as well as knowledge gaps, especially on transmission and treatment. Addressing relevant gaps among students and science teachers in UGS-endemic areas may help high-risk groups recognize risky water contact activities, improve participation in mass drug administration, and spark interest in science by making it practical. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examined the relationship of weather conditions, together with sex and country of origin, with running performance in the Boston Marathon from 1972 to 2018. A total of 580,990 observations from 382,209 different finishers were analyzed using Generalized Additive Mixed Models. Different groups and subgroups were considered such as all runners, near elite 101:200 finishers, near elite 21:100, annual top ten finishers and annual winners. Weather conditions, over the hours of the event, were average air temperature (°C), total precipitations (mm), wet-bulb globe temperature (WBGT) (°C), wind speed (km/h), wind direction (head wind, side wind, tail wind) and barometric pressure (hPa). These effects were examined in a multi-variable model, together with: sex, country of origin, calendar year, an interaction term country:sex and a spline smooth term in function of calendar year and sex. The average temperature, when increasing by 1°C, was related to worsened performance (by 00:01:47 h:min:sec for all finishers and by 00:00:20 h:min:sec for annual winners). Also, the pressure and wet-bulb globe temperature, when increasing, were related to worsened performances. Tail wind improved performances of all groups. Increasing precipitation was significantly (p<0.05) related to worsened performances in all groups except annual winners. Increasing wind speed was also related to worsened performances in all finishers and near elite groups. Kenyans and Ethiopians were the fastest nationalities. The sex differences (men faster than women in all groups) were the largest in near elite groups. Our findings contributed to the knowledge of the performance in Boston Marathon across calendar years, considering as main effects weather conditions, country of origin and sex. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]