News roundup

• Distinguished academic joins the HSRC
  
• Xenophobia report wishes to make a difference
  
• Strengthen families to strengthen children
  
• Working women can protect themselves better against HIV
  
• Soweto teens live on fast foods
  

Distinguished academic joins the HSRC

Xenophobia report wishes to make a difference

Five months since the outbreak of xenophobic violence in South Africa that claimed the lives of 60 people and displaced tens of thousands, the HSRC and the British High Commission launched the second report on this episode at a community centre in Alexandra where the violence broke out first.

The first rapid, on-the-ground study into community perceptions on the xenophobic violence was released at a media briefing in May 2008.

A lively audience of about 60 journalists, representatives of the British High Commissioner and the local police station, as well as local residents turned up to listen to the findings of the report, titled Violence and xenophobia in South Africa: Developing consensus, moving to action on 23 October.

The findings were presented by the editor of the report, Dr Adrian Hadland of the Democracy and Governance programme. A panel consisting of British High Commissioner Paul Boateng and CEO Dr Olive Shisana introduced the research project and participated in the discussion afterwards.

The report pools common wisdom and experience of immigrant communities, government and civil society gained from a roundtable discussion, and comes up with a series of consensual principles and recommendations that are intended to guide the way toward preventing similar outbreaks and unravelling growing xenophobic attitudes in South Africa.

It is hoped these will help to shape thinking and policy on this complex and challenging subject. Fifty delegates from government, civil society and from affected communities attended a roundtable at the HSRC's Pretoria office to do this in late July. This report is the outcome of the roundtable and contains within it a set of agreements and recommendations that participants in the workshop felt would make a difference.

• Download and view the latest report
• Download and view the initial report

Strengthen families to strengthen children

She reviewed the evidence available from high-income countries on the best ways to strengthen families, and how this could be applied to strengthening children and families affected by HIV and AIDS in countries with a high HIV prevalence.

The study, commissioned by the Joint Learning Initiative on Children and HIV/AIDS (JLICA), reflects a growing global consensus that one of the best ways to support children is by supporting their families. Programmes reviewed include home visiting programmes, ECD programmes, and behavioural parenting and family skills building programmes.

Two key areas, namely home health visiting for pregnant mothers and young children, and a combination of centre and community-based early child development (ECD) programmes, emerged as areas of promising intervention that should be considered as key strategies to improve the lives of children in high prevalence countries.

Well-implemented, evidence-based home health visiting and ECD programmes can improve outcomes for children, and provide support to caregivers and families in the care of their youngest members. Such programmes could alleviate the care burden for women and girls in households, enable caregivers to take up other activities such as income generation, schooling, and self-care, and provide a conduit for the delivery of other services, for example nutrition and health care, the study showed.

However, Upjeet warned that without quality programming, it will be difficult to see quality results. For this reason careful attention must be paid to issues of programme implementation and ongoing monitoring and evaluation.

Sufficient resources must be allocated to attract, train, and retain staff, and active efforts must be made to engage families in services. And while it is useful to learn from programmes in resource-rich countries, the study cautions that intervention strategies proven to work in resource-rich contexts cannot be implemented ‘as is' in resource-constrained settings and require testing through local effectiveness and implementation studies.  

Working women can protect themselves better against HIV

Figure 3: HIV incidence estimates for respondents 15-49 years old: 2005 national household survey vs. 2007 survey in the private security industry.

Women who work are better empowered to protect themselves against HIV infection. This is one of the conclusions reached by Dr Victoria Pillay, a post-doctoral fellow in SAHA, who compared the estimated HIV prevalence (the total number of HIV infections over a period) and incidence (recent infections in a year) among security workers with the 2005 national HIV/AIDS household survey.

This research is a further analysis of a study, The impact of and responses to HIV/AIDS in the private security and legal services industry in South Africa, released in January 2008.

Both surveys performed linked anonymous HIV testing. The detection of recent infections was performed using technology called the BED capture enzyme immunoassay, optimised for dried blood spot specimens.

It was found that HIV prevalence among 15-49 year olds was similar in both surveys (16.2% vs. 16.3%), but women in the private security sector had lower HIV prevalence than males (12.6% vs. 17.8%). This finding is very different from the national HIV estimates where women had an almost two times higher HIV prevalence than males (20.2% vs. 11.7%).

Soweto teens live on fast foods

Almost 90% of 17-year-olds living in Soweto, Johannesburg, eat fast food items three or more times per week. This is according to new research from the Birth to Twenty project, based at the University of the Witwatersrand.

The research further demonstrated that, on average, male participants consumed eight fast-food items, and female participants 7.2 items, per week.

Teens feast on ‘quarters' 

Birth to Twenty recruited 3 272 children in 1990 and the research team has been following them ever since. Professor Linda Richter, executive director of the Child, Youth, Family and Social Development programme at the HSRC, is involved in the project.

The study was conducted among a random sample of 655 black 17-year-olds, participating in the Birth to Twenty cohort, Soweto. Participants were required to complete an interviewer-administered questionnaire on fast-food consumption over the past seven days.

The teenagers seemed to choose extremely high-fat, highenergy meals when they opted for fast food, and reported that the ‘quarter', a derivative of the ‘bunny chow', was the most popular meal. This meal typically consists of a quarter loaf of white bread, served with potato chips, fried eggs, processed cheese and luncheon meats or sausages.

A comparison between a ‘quarter' and a medium Big Mac meal showed that ‘quarters' contributed 5185kJ as compared to 4038kJ for a Big Mac meal, resulting in a difference of 1147kJ. Fat content for the quarter was 41.6g and 35.6g for the Big Mac meal, while the protein content was fairly similar. A "quarter" typically had an extreme sodium content of approximately 2280mg. 

Seeing that the average daily requirement for a 17-year-old is approximately 10 000kJ and one ‘quarter' contributes half of this requirement, researchers are concerned that the consumption of these meals could ultimately lead to overweight and obesity. 

However, analysis of participants' body mass index (BMI) indicated that most participants fall in the "normal" range (a BMI of between 18 and 25). Researchers speculate that high activity levels or the fact that the teenagers are still in a growth phase could explain why most of them had a normal body weight, despite the regular intake of fatty, highenergy foods.

Disruption of appetite-control systems

Lead researcher Alison Feeley told congress delegates that fast-food intake has been associated with the disruption of the body's normal appetite-control systems - a phenomenon that could ultimately lead to over-consumption of foods and overweight or obesity.

Fast-food intake is furthermore associated with an inverse intake of fruit and vegetables, and micronutrients. It has also been linked to increased fat and sodium, and decreased fibre intake.