Browsing by Author "Ajambo, Susan"

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    Disclosure of HIV test results by women to their partners following antenatal HIV testing:
    (BMC Public Health, 2015-01-31) Batte, Anthony; Katahoire, Anne Ruhweza; Chimoyi, Anne; Ajambo, Susan; Tibingana, Brenda; Tibingana, Brenda; Banura, Cecily
    Abstract Background: Disclosure of HIV status by women to their partners is the backbone for prevention of HIV transmission among couples as well as promotion of the prevention of mother to child transmission of HIV interventions. The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence and factors associated with disclosure of HIV test results by women to their sexual partners following antenatal HIV testing in Kamwokya slum community, Kampala, Uganda. Methods: This was a population based cross-sectional study carried out from October to November 2011. A total of 408 randomly selected women aged 18–45 years, who had delivered a child within 2 years prior to the study, and had tested for HIV during antenatal care were recruited from Kamwokya community. A standardised interviewer- administered questionnaire was used to collect data. Data was entered into Epidata 2.1b and analysed using SPSS software version 16.0 and StatsDirect version 2.8.0. Results: Overall 83.8% (95% CI: 79.9- 87.1) of the women reported that they had disclosed their HIV status to their sexual partners. Disclosure was significantly higher among women whose partners had also tested for HIV (OR=24.86, 95% CI: 5.30 - 116.56). Other factors that were associated with disclosure were secondary education or above (OR=2.66, 95% CI: 1.34 - 5.30), having attended 3 or more antenatal care visits (OR=3.62, 95% CI: 1.70 - 7.72), being married/cohabiting (OR=8.76, 95% CI: 4.06 - 18.81) and whether or not they would opt not to disclose a family member’s HIV status (OR=1.61, 95% CI: 1.003 - 2.58). Overall, stigma was not significantly associated with disclosure. Conclusions: Disclosure of HIV test results to sexual partners in this group of women was relatively high. The results suggest that having a sexual partner who had also tested probably made it easier to disclose the woman’s HIV status. Other predictors of disclosure were secondary education and above and having attended more antenatal care visits. These findings suggest the need for promotion of sexual partner HIV testing, improvement of literacy levels of women, and encouragement of women to attend antenatal care, as key factors in promoting disclosure of HIV results
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    Does gender matter in effective management of plant disease epidemics? Insights from a survey among rural banana farming households in Uganda
    (Journal of Development and Agricultural Economics, 2018) Mutebi Kikulwe, Enoch; Okurut, Stanslus; Ajambo, Susan; Gotor, Eisabetta; Tendo Ssali, Reuben; Kubiriba, Jerome; Karamura, Eldad
    Crop diseases significantly suppress plant yields and in extreme cases wipe out entire crop species threatening food security and eroding rural livelihoods. It is therefore critical to estimate the extent to which shocks like disease epidemics can affect food availability and the capacity of smallholder farmers to mitigate and reverse the effects of such shocks. This study utilizes sex-disaggregated data from 341 households in Uganda to analyze: first, gender and access to agricultural resources and their control; second, whether men and women in the targeted banana-farming communities share similar perceptions toward the effectiveness of the banana Xanthomonas wilt (BXW) control technologies and their respective information dissemination pathways; third, whether gender and farmer perceptions influence on farm adoption of BXW management practices. Lastly, it determines the impact of adoption of BXW control practices on food security. Results show that whereas most household assets are jointly owned, men have more individual ownership, control, and decision-making on income from household assets than women. Perceptions on effectiveness of BXW control practices and communication channels also differed between men and women. Men rated cutting down of infected plants to be more effective than women, but tissue culture, removal of male buds and disinfecting of farm tools were perceived to be equally effective by both men and women. In addition, apart from newspapers which were more effective in delivering BXW information to men, we found no differences in the effectiveness of other BXW information sources. More importantly, the study finds both gender and farmer perceptions on BXW control to significantly affect adoption of BXW control practices and household food security. For better and sustainable management of plant epidemics in Uganda, it is therefore critical that existing gender-based and underlying perception constraints are addressed.
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    Postharvest Losses and their Determinants: A Challenge to Creating a Sustainable Cooking Banana Value Chain in Uganda
    (Sustainability, 2018) Kikulwe, Enoch Mutebi; Okurut, Stanslus; Ajambo, Susan; Nowakunda, Kephas; Stoian, Dietmar; Naziri, Diego
    Postharvest losses (PHL) result in direct food and income losses to farmers and consumers globally. PHL reduction strategies offer unique opportunities to contribute to sustainable food systems for increased food security and farm incomes for more than 200 million food insecure people in sub-Saharan Africa. Lack of empirical information remains a major challenge to operationalization of PHL reduction strategies in many countries of the region. This paper utilizes cross-sectional data to determine the extent and factors that are influencing postharvest losses in the cooking-banana value chain in Uganda. We find that 14.9% of all the cooking bananas that are produced in Uganda suffer postharvest deterioration along the value chain (7.2% of the bananas deteriorate completely and have no residual value, while 7.7% deteriorate partially and are sold at discounted prices), mostly affecting retailers. At farm level, female headed households experience more losses than those headed by males. Household headship, household size, proportion of land allocated to banana production, and monthly banana production are the principal determinants of PHL at farm level. At retail level, such losses are mainly determined by sex of the vendor and group membership. The findings call for comprehensive and gender-responsive PHL reduction strategies.
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    Structure of the Cooking Banana Value Chain in Uganda and Opportunities for Value Addition and Postharvest Losses Reduction
    (RTB‐Endure technical report http, 2015) Nalunga, Asha; Kikulwe, Enoch; Nowakunda, Kephas; Ajambo, Susan; Naziri, Diego
    Cooking banana is the main staple crop in Uganda produced mostly by smallholders for food and income. However, actors along the cooking banana value chain in Uganda face risks high postharvest (PH) losses due to short green life of bananas and damage arising from poor postharvest handling, leading to high physical and economic losses. To understand and quantify the extent of the losses and other overarching issues along the value chain (VC), a detailed market study was conducted based on five specific objectives, including: (1) identify and describe the key players in the banana value chain; (2) establish the current demand and future growth prospects of the different banana presentation forms; (3) establish the level of sorting and grading in the banana value chain; (4) establish the level of use of the weight-based pricing system along the VC and the actor’s willingness to pay for its introduction; and (5) determine the extent and causes of postharvest losses along the banana value chain.