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Purpose: This paper aims to examine landlords' health support systems to tenants to control COVID-19 in selected informal settlement rental housing (ISRH) in Ghana, dwelling on landlords' views. Design/methodology/approach: The paper used the concurrent imbedded mixed-methods approach and grounded the findings in the socio-ecological theory. The authors collected both qualitative and quantitative data from 242 landlords in 13 informal settlements across Ghana using quotas. The authors undertook semi-structured face-to-face and telephone interviews. The authors conducted content and thematic qualitative data analysis and used simple descriptive statistical data analysis. Findings: The paper discovered that tenants had limited knowledge on the transmission of the pandemic, forcing landlords to regulate their building services usage, ventilation and thermal control, entertainment, common areas and rent advancement for tenants to control the pandemic. Also, tenants found it difficult to comply with the rules on ventilation for fear of criminal attacks, while high social connection and interaction among renters and inadequate enforcement caused the non-adherence by renters to social gathering. Again, landlords had difficulty in contract-tracing visitors suspected to be infected with the virus. Originality/value: The use of concurrent and imbedded mixed methods to investigate landlords' viewpoints on their support in health needs of their tenants to regulate COVID-19. The prescriptions from the study provide practical applications to formulate a mix of housing and health policies to formalize the support of landlords to their tenants in ISRH in Ghana. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study employs the therapeutic landscape theory to explore how online religious services during lockdown restrictions shape experiences of well-being and intergenerational learning. We used qualitative data from in depth interviews and focus groups with older adults and pastors in five churches in Ghana to explore how online religious places are conceptualized as therapeutic landscapes for sustaining wellbeing goals amidst a global pandemic. We identified multiple pathways of meaning through which online religious services shape the lives of people in a faith community to sustain the experience of well-being in a difficult time. In addition, this paper reflects on the broader implications of COVID-19 in shaping a paradigm shift in digital religion and intergenerational learning experiences through a changing religious landscape precipitated by lockdown restrictions that have drastically altered traditional religious places. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On 11 March 2020, the World Health Organisation declared COVID‐19 a global pandemic. Subsequently, governments worldwide implemented strict regimes of lockdowns and school closures to contain the transmission of the virus. Ghana's government on 15 March 2020 also announced a lockdown and closure of schools, lasting up till January 2021. Against this backdrop, the paper examined the implications of school closures on child labour in Ghana. Qualitative data for the study were collected between October 2020 to February 2021 in a small rural community in northern Ghana. Findings from 16 semi‐structured interviews with schoolchildren aged 8–13 years show how school closures have meant that children from contexts of poverty: (a) are driven into child labour as they are either forced to accompany their parents to work on farms or sell foodstuff by the roadside; and thus, ultimately (b) engage in no learning during the lockdown period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Since its emergence, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has caused severe health, social and economic challenges. Mental healthcare has been significantly affected globally, and even worse in developing countries. An emerging economy like Ghana in West Africa was not spared its disruptive effects. This study aimed to elucidate the impact of the coronavirus disease 2019, the COVID-19 pandemic (caused by SARS-CoV-2), on Ghana's mental healthcare system. Methods: This is a mixed-method study using an emergent sequential exploratory design. A total of 15 front-line healthcare professionals were recruited from the three psychiatric hospitals, including the mental health department of a new teaching hospital in Ghana. Purposive sampling techniques and a semi-structured interview approach were used for recruitment and data collection. Quantitative data from hospital registries were collected and analysed to triangulate qualitative findings. Results: Fifteen mental health workers were enrolled in the study. The mean age of participants was (34.47 ± 4.07) years, average work experience of (6.23 ± 3.64) years and the majority as males (60%). This study found an average decline of 23% in hospital attendance and a 35% decline in admissions in all four facilities compared to the previous year, 2019. The lived experiences shared by mental healthcare providers were grouped under 3 main themes: Adjustments to workplace regulations, accessibility to mental healthcare, and psychological wellbeing of mental healthcare workers. The fear of contracting SARS-CoV-2 among healthcare workers, medication shortages, and logistical challenges were also reported to affect Mental Health services during the pandemic. Conclusion: This study highlights the challenges in mental healthcare during the COVID-19 pandemic in Ghana. The experiences encountered present an opportunity to gain insights into future pandemic preparedness and establish a framework for optimal mental healthcare delivery in Ghana. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following the successful development of vaccines for COVID-19, attention turned to the problem of vaccine access. However, in contexts where vaccines are available, hesitancy remains a major problem. Informed theoretically by the scholarship on vaccine anxiety, this paper uses a qualitative research approach that included 144 semi-structured interviews to investigate how social and political dynamics shaped people's perspectives in particular environments in Ghana, Cameroon, and Malawi about COVID-19's viral spread and COVID-19 vaccines. Vaccines and the viral spread of COVID-19 are related to political tensions and class-related fractures in particular contexts, and how the public interprets COVID-19's viral spread and engages with vaccination is based on people's social and political environment and their experience. Subjectivities are also rooted in coloniality. Vaccine confidence goes beyond clinical and regulatory authority approvals, and encompasses forces that are economic, social, and political in nature. Thus, an exclusive focus on technical prescriptions for enhancing vaccine uptake will not achieve significant positive results. • Vaccines are related to political tensions and class-related fractures in particular settings. • Political context shapes how people view mandatory vaccination. • The body is a mirror of socio-political context. • Worries about getting COVID-19 vaccines cut across professional and income-related categories. • Distrust in vaccines has national and international dimensions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims and Objective: We sought to investigate knowledge and skills of type 1 diabetes (T1D) management among young people living with the disease and their caregivers. Our aim is to provide baseline evidence to inform T1D self‐management education for young people living with the disease and their caregivers. Background: Both local and international guidelines recommend ongoing T1D self‐management education for people living with the disease. This is because T1D often develops among young people who rarely have the competencies to adequately manage their condition. However, the extent to which young people living with T1D and their caregivers can self‐manage this chronic disease in a low‐resource country like Ghana is unknown. Methods: Using a phenomenological study design, semi‐structured interviews were conducted with 28 young people living with type 1 diabetes, 12 caregivers and 6 healthcare providers in southern Ghana. Data were collected at homes, hospitals and support group centres of participants via face‐to‐face interviews, photovoice and video‐conferencing. The data were analysed thematically using QSR NVivo 11. Results: The young people living with T1D and their caregivers demonstrated knowledge and skills in the self‐monitoring of blood glucose, and the treatment of hyperglycaemia. Areas of more marginal or lack of knowledge were concerning carbohydrate counting, severe hypoglycaemia and the management of intercurrent illnesses. Young persons living with T1D and their caregivers received their management information from healthcare and non‐healthcare providers. Access to diabetes self‐management education influenced T1D management knowledge and practices. Conclusion: Young people living with type 1 diabetes and their caregivers possessed limited scope of knowledge on type 1 diabetes self‐management. Multiple sources of T1D knowledge were found, some of which may not be helpful to patients. The knowledge gaps identified compromises transitional independence and self‐management capacity. Relevance to Clinical Practice: It is important for clinicians and organizations that provide T1D education to provide diabetes self‐management education also on managing hypoglycaemia, carbohydrate counting and managing T1D during intercurrent life events among young people living with T1D. No Patient or Public Contribution: Patients and their caregivers were interviewed as research participants. They did not conceptualize, analyse, interpret or prepare the manuscript. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Little research has been conducted to explore the functional status of community‐dwelling older adults in sub‐Saharan Africa, including Ghana, especially during the COVID‐19 pandemic. This study investigated the functional status and the health‐seeking behaviour of older adults during the COVID‐19 pandemic in Ghana. Utilising a descriptive qualitative approach, semi‐structured interviews were used to collect data from 12 eligible older adults from southern Ghana. With the use of NVivo (v12), descriptive and focused coding techniques were employed to analyse the data. The following five themes were identified after the data analysis: (a) older adults' health status during COVID‐19 pandemic, (b) feeling limited, (c) feeling of unhappiness for being inactive, (d) striving to be active and (e) seeking healthcare during COVID‐19 pandemic. This study revealed the unique health and social‐related needs of Ghanaian older adults during the COVID‐19 pandemic. This study's findings draw attention to the urgent need for the state to devise practical health and social‐related initiatives to support older adults during and after the COVID‐19 pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Ghana government instituted a ban on social gatherings, including religious gatherings. To understand how the unanticipated restrictions and interruption in normal church routines affected the well-being of congregants in Ghana, we interviewed 14 religious leaders. Thematic analysis revealed psychospiritual impacts including decline in spiritual life, loss of fellowship and community, financial difficulties, challenges with childcare, as well as fear of infection. Religious leaders intervened by delivering sermons on hope, faith, and repentance. Some religious leaders sensitized their members on health hygiene and COVID-19-related stigma. The study sheds light on the perceived impacts of COVID-19 and restrictions of religious gatherings on congregants in Ghana. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author examined experiences of Commercial Sex Workers (CSWs) in Accra, Kumasi and Kasoa metropolises following Ghana's imposition restrictive ACT since 21 March 2020. Three trained male field assistants posing as mystery clients, purposively selected and interviewed 35 CSWs using a combination of face-to-face and telephone interviews with consenting CSWs in the study area. Findings show declined activity and patronage of CSWs due to fear of contracting COVID-19. With no savings or other reliable sources of income, some CSWs have however devised various strategies to work safely and implored the government to support them financially during this crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]