Jaboya ("Sex for Fish"): A Qualitative Analysis of Contextual Risk Factors for Extramarital Partnerships in the Fishing Communities in Western Kenya.

Extramarital partnerships exacerbate high HIV prevalence rates in many communities in sub-Saharan Africa. We explored contextual risk factors and suggested interventions to reduce extramarital partnerships among couples in the fishing communities on Lake Victoria, Kenya. We conducted 12 focus group discussions with 9-10 participants each (N = 118) and 16 in-depth interviews (N = 16) with fishermen and their spouses. Couples who participated were consented and separated for simultaneous gender-matched discussions/interviews. Interview topics included courtship and marriage, relationship and sexual satisfaction, extramarital relationships and how to intervene on HIV risks. Coding, analysis, and interpretation of the transcripts followed grounded theory tenets that allow analytical themes to emerge from the participants. Our results showed that extramarital partnerships were perceived to be widespread and were attributed to factors related to sexual satisfaction such as women needing more foreplay before intercourse, discrepancies in sexual desire, and boredom with the current sexual repertoire. Participants also reported that financial and sociophysical factors such as family financial support and physical separation, contributed to the formation of extramarital partnerships. Participants made suggestions for interventions that reduce extramarital partnerships to minimize HIV risks at the community, couple, and individual level. These suggestions emphasized improving community education, spousal communication, and self-evaluation for positive behavior change. Future studies can draw upon these findings as a basis for designing community-owned interventions that seek to reduce community-level HIV risk through a reduction in the number of sexual partners.

A cross-sectional survey of prevalence and correlates of couple sexual concurrency among married couples in fishing communities along Lake Victoria in Kisumu, Kenya.

OBJECTIVE: Sexual concurrency has been associated with HIV infection. Since HIV in sub-Saharan Africa is mostly spread within the context of heterosexual couples, it is necessary that intervention is focused on such couples. We sought to establish the correlates of couple sexual concurrency in Kisumu, Kenya. METHODS: We conducted 1090 gender-matched interviews in 545 couples in a cross-sectional survey. A random sample of fishermen and their spouses from 33 fish-landing beaches along the shores of Lake Victoria in Kisumu were asked to enrol in the study. Couples were separated into different private rooms for simultaneous interviews that documented socioeconomic and behavioural characteristics, and information on number of sexual partnerships in the preceding 6 months and their status. Based on reported concurrency status of the spouses, a couple was categorised as either concurrent when at least one spouse reported a concurrent sexual relationship or non-concurrent. RESULTS: Overall, 32.1% of the men and 6.2% of the women had concurrent sexual relationships in the 6 months preceding the study, resulting in 37.6% of the couples being sexually concurrent. Unmet sexual desire, intra-spousal suspicions of infidelity, male dominance scripts, domestic violence, couples' children and women's age were the correlates of couple sexual concurrency. CONCLUSIONS: Unmet sexual desires, inter-spousal infidelity suspicions, male dominance scripts and domestic violence were the main correlates of couple sexual concurrency in these fishing communities.

Parameterization, calibration and validation of the DNDC model for carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide and maize crop performance estimation in East Africa.

Dynamic biogeochemical models are crucial tools for simulating the complex interaction between soils, climate and plants; thus the need for improving understanding of nutrient cycling and reduction of greenhouse gases (GHG) from the environment. This study aimed to calibrate and validate the DeNitrification-DeComposition (DNDC) model for soil moisture, temperature, respiration, nitrous oxide and maize crop growth simulation in drier sub-humid parts of the central highlands of Kenya. We measured soil GHG fluxes from a maize field under four different soil fertility management practices for one year using static chambers and gas chromatography. Using experimental data collected from four management practices during GHG sampling period, we parameterized the DNDC model. The results indicate that the DNDC model simulates daily and annual soil moisture, soil temperature, soil respiration (CO2), nitrous oxide (N2O), N2O yield-scaled emissions (YSE), N2O emission factors (EFs) and maize crop growth with a high degree of fitness. However, the DNDC simulations slightly underestimated soil temperature (2-6%), crop growth (2-45%) and N2O emissions (5-23%). The simulation overestimated soil moisture (9-17%) and CO2 emissions (3-10%). It however, perfectly simulated YSE and EFs. Compared to the observed/measured annual GHG trends, the simulation results were relatively good, with an almost perfect fitting of emission peaks during soil rewetting at the onset of rains, coinciding with soil fertilisation. These findings provide reliable information in selecting best farm management practice, which simultaneously improves agricultural productivity and reduces GHG emissions, thus permitting climate-smart agriculture. The good DNDC simulated YSE and EFs values (Tier III) provide cheaper and reliable ways of filling the huge GHG data gap, reducing uncertainties in national GHG inventories and result to efficient targeting of mitigation measures in sub-Saharan Africa.

Short-term mobility and the risk of HIV infection among married couples in the fishing communities along Lake Victoria, Kenya.

OBJECTIVE: Mobility has long been associated with high HIV prevalence. We sought to assess sex differences in the relationship between mobility and risk for HIV infection among married couples in the fishing communities. METHODS: We conducted 1090 gender-matched interviews and rapid HIV testing with 545 couples proportionally representing all the different sizes of the fish-landing beaches in Kisumu County. We contacted a random sample of fishermen as our index participants and asked them to enroll in the study together with their spouses. The consenting couples were separated into different private rooms for concurrent interviews and thereafter reunited for couple rapid HIV counselling and testing. In addition to socio-economic and behavioural data, we collected information on overnight travels and divided couples in 4 groups as follows both partners not mobile, both partners mobile, only woman mobile, and only man mobile. Other than descriptive statistics, we used X(2) and U tests to compare groups of variables and multivariate logistic regression to measure association between mobility and HIV infection. RESULTS: We found significant differences in the number of trips women travelled in the preceding month (mean 4.6, SD 7.1) compared to men (mean 3.3, SD 4.9; p<0.01) and when the women did travel, they were more likely to spend more days away from home than their male partners (mean 5.2 [SD 7.2] versus 3.4 SD 5.6; p = 0.01). With an HIV prevalence of 22.7% in women compared to 20.9% among men, mobile women who had non-mobile spouses had 2.1 times the likelihood of HIV infection compared to individuals in couples where both partners were non-mobile. CONCLUSION: The mobility of fishermen's spouses is associated with HIV infection that is not evident among fishermen themselves. Therefore, interventions in this community could be a combination of sex-specific programming that targets women and combined programming for couples.