A Call to Address AI "Hallucinations" and How Healthcare Professionals Can Mitigate Their Risks.

Artificial intelligence (AI) has transformed society in many ways. AI in medicine has the potential to improve medical care and reduce healthcare professional burnout but we must be cautious of a phenomenon termed "AI hallucinations"and how this term can lead to the stigmatization of AI systems and persons who experience hallucinations. We believe the term "AI misinformation" to be more appropriate and avoids contributing to stigmatization. Healthcare professionals can play an important role in AI's integration into medicine, especially regarding mental health services, so it is important that we continue to critically evaluate AI systems as they emerge.

Social support and the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic among a cohort of people living with HIV (PLWH) in Western Kenya.

As coronavirus disease (COVID-19) was declared a pandemic in 2020, countries around the world implemented various prevention strategies, such as banning of public and social gatherings, restriction in movement, etc. These efforts may have had a deleterious effect on already vulnerable populations, including people living with HIV (PLWH). PLWH were concerned about contracting COVID-19, the impact of COVID-19 on their social networks that provide social support, and the continued availability of antiretroviral medications during the pandemic. In addition, their mental health may have been exacerbated by the pandemic. The purpose of this study was to explore pandemic-related concerns among a cohort of PLWH in Kenya and investigate social support factors associated with symptoms of depression and anxiety. This study is part of a larger cohort study that recruited from two clinics in Western Kenya. Data are drawn from 130 PLWH who participated in two phone surveys about experiences during the pandemic in 2020 and 2021. Participants reported a variety of concerns over the course of the pandemic and we documented statistically significant increases in symptoms of depression and anxiety over time, which affected some participants' ability to adhere to their antiretroviral medication. However, a small but statistically significant group of participants reached out to expand their networks and mobilize support in the context of experiencing mental health and adherence challenges, speaking to the importance of social support as a coping strategy during times of stress. Our findings call for holistic approaches to HIV care that consider the broader political, economic, and social contexts that shape its effectiveness.

Learning from women who trade sex in Kenya about the antiblackness of Global Health.

Sex work and violence have become co-constituted, routinized, and even sanitized in Global Health journals dispassionately advocating for intervention. This paper situates ethnographically shared experiences of Kenyan sex working women within the global condition of antiblackness. By grounding our conceptual analytic in Black Feminist scholarship, we illustrate how antiblackness subtends the conditions of possibility for women's entry into sex work, their subsequent experiences with interpersonal and institutional forms of predatory violence, and lack of recourse for their material needs and suffering. This analysis requires a meditation on the relationships between the types of violence conditioning Kenyan women's lives and the limitations of Global Health's conceptual logics and disciplinary practice. Our discussion reflects on the ways Global Health practice can neglect conceptual foundations in antiblackness, thus complicit in upholding violence against the very groups it purports to assist. In charging Global Health "as usual" as methodologically violent and sustaining global antiblackness, we call for disciplinary transformations beginning from a shared consciousness regarding the ways global antiblackness structures health inequities. Beyond critique, our meditation is an invitation for all committed to dignified Global Health to contribute creative, non-hierarchically collaborative work engaged with those in material, structural, and immaterial need.

Amniotic Fluid Volume Estimation from 20 Weeks to 28 Weeks. Do You Measure Perpendicular to the Floor or Perpendicular to the Uterine Contour?

OBJECTIVE: Two different techniques are described in the literature for measuring amniotic fluid pockets to estimate amniotic fluid volume. This study was undertaken to determine if ultrasound estimates using amniotic fluid index (AFI) and single deepest pocket (SDP) techniques should be measured perpendicular to floor vs perpendicular to uterine contour in pregnancies between 20 and 28 weeks. STUDY DESIGN: Amniotic fluid was measured using AFI and SDP techniques in low risk pregnant women undergoing an indicated ultrasound between 20 and 28 weeks of gestation. Measurements of both AFI and SDP were made holding the ultrasound transducer perpendicular to the floor and then perpendicular to the uterine contour. Pearson's correlation coefficient was used to assess the association between estimated amniotic fluid volumes determined by the transducer perpendicular to the floor versus transducer perpendicular to the uterine contour; intra-class correlation coefficient was used to test agreement of the two techniques. RESULTS: Measurements were collected on 160 women between 20 and 28 weeks. For pregnancies between 20 and 28 weeks, the level of correlation for AFI was 0.67 (95% CI 0.57-0.74) [moderate] and for SDP was 0.47 (95% CI: 0.34-0.58) [poor]. CONCLUSION: In pregnancies between 20 and 28 weeks, the correlation of AFI values perpendicular to floor and perpendicular to the uterine contour remains moderate, either measurement can be used to estimate amniotic fluid volume. The correlation for SDP is poor and it remains uncertain which technique, perpendicular to floor or perpendicular to uterine contour, should be used for estimating amniotic fluid volume.