Understanding post-conflict mental health needs and co-producing a community-based mental health intervention for older adults in Colombia: a research protocol [Scholarly Article - BMC Health Services Research, 2022]

Title: 

Understanding post-conflict mental health needs and co-producing a community-based mental health intervention for older adults in Colombia: a research protocol  

 

Authors: 

Clarissa Giebel, Maria Isabel Zuluaga, Gabriel Saldarriaga, Ross White, Siobhan Reilly, Erica Montoya, Dawn Allen, Ginger Liu, Yeferson Castaño-Pineda & Mark Gabbay  

 

Published: 

BMC Health Services Research, Volume 22, Article number: 253 (24 February 2022) 

https://bmchealthservres.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12913-022-07645-8   

 

Abstract: 

Background 

Older adults in Colombia have seen a number of stressful life events – including the Colombian armed conflict, forced misplacement and recently COVID-19. These events likely have had and are having a substantial impact on people’s mental health and well-being, whilst mental health care provision in Colombia is not sufficient and often access is limited and unaffordable. Therefore, the aim of this study is to understand the impact of stressful life events on the mental health of older adults living in Colombia, and co-produce, pilot, and evaluate a community-based mental health intervention in Turbo.  

 

Methods 

This 3-year international mixed-methods study comprises of three phases: Phase I will explore the impact of stressful life events on the mental health of older adults living in Colombia, and their mental health needs, via quantitative needs assessments and qualitative interviews and focus groups; Phase II will involve synthesising the findings from Phase I as well as conducting a systematic review and qualitative interviews with experts into implementing mental health interventions in LMICs to co-produce a community-based mental health intervention with older adults and local community group leaders and care providers; Phase III will involve the piloting and evaluation of the mental health intervention via quantitative and qualitative assessments. Co-production and public involvement underpin each element of this project.  

 

Discussion 

Appropriate mental health care is as important as physical health care, but this study also looks at how we might integrate these findings into community-level public health initiatives for application both within Colombia and more widely in both LMICs and more developed countries. This study protocol will act as a guide for the development and adaptation of psychosocial mental health interventions in different cultures and contexts.

 

COLOMBIA - Amid violence and protests, Colombian universities seek to promote a national dialogue [Science, May 2021]

Title:

Amid violence and protests, Colombian universities seek to promote a national dialogue 

 

Author:

María Paula Rubiano A. 

 

Published:

Science, 21 May 2021

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/05/amid-violence-and-protests-colombian-universities-seek-promote-national-dialogue

 

From the article:

In the first week of May, hundreds of college students in Colombia turned off their webcams during online classes and shared the same profile picture, a black background with a message in capital letters: “It is difficult to study while my people are being killed.” It was their way of supporting a national strike and protests that started on 28 April and left 19 people dead in the first week, many of them apparently killed by the Colombian police and its antiriot squad.

 

'Unethical and unconscionable': Richer nations getting more COVID-19 vaccines than poorer [USA Today, 13 February 2021]

Title:

'Unethical and unconscionable': Richer nations getting more COVID-19 vaccines than poorer 

 

Author:

Megan Janetsky

 

Published:

USA Today, 13 February 2021 [updated 14 February 2021]

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2021/02/13/young-americans-may-get-covid-vaccine-before-poorer-nations-elderly/6721043002/

From the article:

While images of people lined up for long-awaited COVID-19 vaccinations spurred hope in millions across the globe, they stirred up something else in Dr. Juan Jose Velez: frustration.  

 

Velez runs the coronavirus ward in one of the biggest public hospitals in Colombia, a country with one of the highest death rates and coronavirus positivity rates in the world.  

 

While more than 152 million COVID-19 vaccine doses have been administered globally, with roughly a third of those in the U.S., according to Bloomberg's vaccine tracker, Colombia is among a number of lower- to middle-income countries that still had not administered a single dose by mid-February.

medRxiv, 10 July 2020 (preprint) - SARS-CoV-2 spread across the Colombian-Venezuelan border

Title:
SARS-CoV-2 spread across the Colombian-Venezuelan border

Authors:
Alberto Paniz-Mondolfi, Marina Munoz, Carolina Florez, Sergio Gomez, Angelica Rico, Lisseth Pardo, Esther C Barros, Carolina Hernandez, Lourdes Delgado, Jesus Jaimes, Luis Perez, Anibal Teheran, Hala Alshammary, Ajay Obla, Zenab Khan, Ana Gonzalez-Reiche, Matthew Hernandez, Emilia Sordillo, Viviana Simon, Harm van Bakel & Juan David Ramirez

Published:
medRxiv, 10 July 2020
[Keep in mind that this article is a preprint and not yet peer reviewed.]
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.07.09.20149856v1

Abstract:
Venezuela and Colombia both adopted measures of containment early in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, Venezuelan ongoing humanitarian crisis has decimated its health care system, and forced millions of Venezuelans to flee through its porous border with Colombia. The extensive shared border, and illegal cross-border transit through improvised trails between the two countries are major challenges for public health authorities. We report the first SARS-CoV-2 genomes from Venezuela, and present a snapshot of the SARS-CoV-2 epidemiologic landscape in the Colombian-Venezuelan border region. We sequenced and assembled viral genomes from total RNA extracted from nasopharyngeal (NP) clinical specimens using a custom reference-based analysis pipeline. Three assemblies obtained were subjected to typing using the Phylogenetic Assignment of Named Global Outbreak LINeages Pangolin tool. A total of 376 publicly available SARS-CoV-2 genomes from South America were obtained from the GISAID database to perform comparative genomic analyses. Additionally, the Wuhan-1 strain was used as reference. We found that two of the SARS-CoV-2 genomes from Venezuela belonged to the B1 lineage, and the third to the B.1.13 lineage. We observed a point mutation in the Spike protein gene (D614G substitution), previously reported to be associated with increased infectivity, in all three Venezuelan genomes. An additional three mutations (R203K/G204R substitution) were present in the nucleocapsid (N) gene of one Venezuelan genome. Conclusions: Genomic sequencing demonstrates similarity between SARS-CoV-2 lineages from Venezuela and viruses collected from patients in bordering areas in Colombia and from Brazil, consistent with cross-border transit despite administrative measures including lockdowns. The presence of mutations associated with increased infectivity in the 3 Venezuelan genomes we report and Colombian SARS-CoV-2 genomes from neighboring borders areas may pose additional challenges for control of SARS-CoV-2 spread in the complex epidemiological landscape in Latin American countries. Public health authorities should carefully follow the progress of the pandemic and its impact on displaced populations within the region.

Scholarly Article (March 2020) - Impact of Positive Personal Traits on University Student Engagement in Mexico, Colombia, and El Salvador (by Durón-Ramos, M.F. [et al.])

Title:
Impact of Positive Personal Traits on University Student Engagement in Mexico, Colombia, and El Salvador

Authors:
Maria Fernanda Durón-Ramos, Pedro Alexis Mojica-Gómez, Katherine Villamizar-Gomez & Edgardo René Chacón-Andrade

From the article:
"A large number of determinants influence the academic engagement of university students. However, positive influences that can be encouraged by the university have not been thoroughly studied. Most psychological research has been conducted in developed countries. Given the importance of understanding and encouraging university students in Latin America, it is essential to increase the quantity of research focused on personal traits and their association with better performance by university students. Two positive traits that have been shown to improve performance in a variety of areas are emotional intelligence and orientation to happiness. However, little is known about the relationship between these two positive aspects and university student engagement. The aim of this study was to determine the impact of emotional intelligence and orientation to happiness on university student engagement in three Latin American countries: Mexico, Colombia, and El Salvador."

Citation:
Durón-Ramos, M.F. [et al.]. (4 March 2020). Impact of Positive Personal Traits on University Student Engagement in Mexico, Colombia, and El Salvador. Frontiers in Education, 5. Available: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/feduc.2020.00012/full