Category Archives: Epidemiology and Determinants of Health
A historical review of HIV prevention and care initiatives in British Columbia, Canada: 1996-2015
INTRODUCTION: British Columbia has made significant progress in the treatment and prevention of HIV since 1996, when Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy (HAART) became available. However, we currently lack a historical...
Prevalence of hepatitis D virus infection in sub-Saharan Africa: A systematic review and meta-analysis
BACKGROUND: Hepatitis D virus (also known as hepatitis delta virus) can establish a persistent infection in people with chronic hepatitis B, leading to accelerated progression of liver disease. In sub-Saharan...
Zoonotic and vector-borne infections among urban homeless and marginalized people in the United States and Europe, 1990-2014
INTRODUCTION: In high-income countries, homeless individuals in urban areas often live in crowded conditions with limited sanitation and personal hygiene. The environment of homelessness in high-income countries may result in...
Opportunities and gaps in primary care preventative health services for transgender patients: A systemic review
Purpose: Transgender people face barriers to accessing healthcare, resulting in population-level disparities in health outcomes. Little research is available to better understand the receipt of primary healthcare among transgender patients...
Global prevalence of injecting drug use and sociodemographic characteristics and prevalence of HIV, HBV, and HCV in people who inject drugs: A multistage systematic review
BACKGROUND: Sharing of equipment used for injecting drug use (IDU) is a substantial cause of disease burden and a contributor to blood-borne virus transmission. We did a global multistage systematic...
Shifting tasks from pharmacy to non-pharmacy personnel for providing antiretroviral therapy to people living with HIV: A systematic review and meta-analysis
OBJECTIVES: Lay people or non-pharmacy health workers with training could dispense antiretroviral therapy (ART) in resource-constrained countries, freeing up time for pharmacists to focus on more technical tasks. We assessed...
Prevalence of hepatitis B and hepatitis C virus co-infection in India: A systematic review and meta-analysis
Hepatitis B virus (HBV) and hepatitis C virus (HCV) have several important similarities including worldwide distribution, hepato-tropism, similar modes of transmission and the ability to induce chronic infection that may...
The role of Community Mobilization in maternal care provision for women in sub-Saharan Africa- A systematic review of studies using an experimental design
BACKGROUND: While the role of community mobilization in improving maternal health outcomes of HIV positive women in sub-Saharan Africa is continuously emphasized, little is known about how legitimate these claims...
Does being drunk or high cause HIV sexual risk behavior? A systematic review of drug administration studies
HIV sexual risk behavior is broadly associated with substance use. Yet critical questions remain regarding the potential causal link between substance use (e.g., intoxication) and HIV sexual risk behavior. The...
Prevalence of Kaposi’s sarcoma-associated herpesvirus among intravenous drug users: A systematic review and meta-analysis
Intravenous drug users (IDUs) have been demonstrated to be highly vulnerable to HIV/AIDS. Nevertheless, the prevalence of Kaposi’s sarcoma associated herpesvirus (KSHV), an important co-infected agent with HIV, among this...
