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IN LIBERIA, a post-conflict country of five million people, the Coronavirus pandemic has intensified women's social reproductive labor to institutionalize peace, security, and gender equality. The challenges facing Liberian women [...]

IN 2019, A Black student at a prestigious Canadian university was confronted with the 'N' word in the classroom. When she publicly challenged the word's utterly dehumanizing impacts, she was [...]

African, Caribbean, and Black men constitute the second-highest category of males living with HIV in Ontario, which increased from 15.4% to 17% between 2011 and 2016. Previous studies have attributed this disproportionately higher rate to multiple concurrent sexual partnerships and low rates of HIV testing. Drawing on theoretical constructs of the health belief model (HBM), this study examined the relationship between multiple concurrent sexual partnerships and the uptake of HIV testing services among heterosexual Black men in Ontario. Using a cross-sectional sample data of 829 individuals from four cities in Ontario, we employed the multinomial logit analysis to examine the relationship between multiple sexual partnerships and the uptake of HIV testing services among heterosexual Black men. The findings show that heterosexual Black men with multiple concurrent sexual partners were more than twice (RRR = 2.306, P < 0.01) as likely to test for HIV within the past 12 months when compared to those with one partner. Furthermore, being an immigrant, having good knowledge of HIV transmission, and earning lower annual income predicted higher odds of testing while sexual debut between the ages of 16 and 20 years, no visit to a healthcare provider in the past year and difficulty accessing healthcare significantly predicted lower likelihood of testing for HIV. These findings align with the theoretical constructs of the health belief model but more importantly, they suggest heterosexual Black men with concurrent sexual partners may be aware of their HIV risk and are taking measures to know their serostatus. Hence, making HIV screening services accessible and at safer spaces could increase their use of HIV screening services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Poor knowledge of sexual partners' HIV status is a major contributing factor in the heterosexual spread of HIV in Canada. This study examined knowledge of sexual partner's HIV serostatus and the practice of safer sex among self-identified heterosexual African, Caribbean and Black (ACB) men in London, Ontario. Design: A cross-sectional data was collected from 156 heterosexual ACB men in London. The negative log–log link function was fitted to estimate the relationship between knowledge of sexual partner's HIV status and condom use among ACB men. Results: Findings show that ACB men who know their sexual partner's HIV status are less likely to use condoms compared to men who do not know the serostatus of their sexual partner, controlling for other theoretically relevant covariates. In addition, the findings show that sexually active, single ACB men are less likely to use condoms. On the other hand, ACB men with higher education, employed and with income over 60 thousand dollars a year have a higher likelihood of using condoms. Conclusions: Heterosexual ACB men who used condoms even when they did not know their sexual partners' HIV status could be explained as a resilience-building strategy in response to their increasing HIV vulnerabilities. Heterosexual ACB men's use of condoms is further associated with socioeconomic factors including income, employment and education that need to be addressed for an improved safer sex. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Liberia, in the face of two consecutive health emergencies - the Ebola epidemic in 2014 and COVID in 2019 - offers a unique, comparative perspective on health crisis management within a fractured healthcare system. In dialogue with a feminist-informed political economy of health in the African context, this paper has two central objectives. First, it examines the strategies employed by community-based women's organisations - many of whom remain invested in peacebuilding after a 14-year civil war (1989-2003)) - to contain the Ebola and COVID-19 disease outbreaks. Second, it explores the implementation strategies under two political administrations, Sirleaf (Ebola) and Weah (COVID-19), at two distinct political moments. Results from five focus group discussions (n = 27) and seven in-depth interviews (n = 7) suggest that, while there was a relative collective effort from the Liberian government, grassroots women's organisations and community members to contain the Ebola epidemic response, the COVID-19 response witnessed an individualistic approach. Overall, participants suggested that lessons learned from the Ebola epidemic did not seem to be transferred to managing the COVID-19 pandemic in Liberia. The study suggests that while local-government-international partnerships are instrumental in ending health emergencies, grassroots community organisations require economic and social resources and sustained political will to effectively build and maintain various health infrastructures in post-conflict countries. This is relevant not just for managing disease outbreaks and health emergencies but also for entrenching public health services to support population health. Here, lessons from Ebola and COVID-19 rooted in everyday experiences of women's reproductive labour can provide an educational foundation for responding to future disease outbreaks in Liberia and other post-conflict contexts., (Copyright © 2024 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.)