Against the odds: exploring individuals' pushback mechanisms against commercialized football gambling.

Introduction: The need for money, the pursuit of pleasure, and the liberalized access to gambling have been documented in several pieces of literature as the drivers of gambling. Such drivers are predicated on commercialized gambling, leading to the growth of the gambling industry and constituting a structural influence that normalizes the activity among young people. Methods: Through a qualitative inquiry, this study investigates the social agentic factors of individuals who are susceptible to gambling. Fifteen non-gamblers were recruited across three commercial cities in Africa, namely Nairobi, Lagos, and Johannesburg. We first established the gambling susceptibility of the participants: their need for money, their passion for football, ownership of a smartphone, access to the internet, and exposure to football gambling marketing. Results: Consequently, we probed for their agency, which is indicative of why they do not gamble, despite being susceptible to engaging in the activity. Four major agentic factors were identified from the participants; knowledge of the industry's business model, conserving the integrity of football, identity of self, morality and/or religion model. Discussion: As such, these factors may be utilized to develop an intervention program for gamblers within the geographical context.

Using SNSs for early detection of disease outbreak in developing countries: evidence from COVID-19 pandemic in Nigeria.

Developing countries, particularly Nigeria, continually find it challenging to proactively and actively carry out early-stage surveillance for disease outbreaks due to the lack of quality workforce, a dearth of public health data, and the absence of automated surveillance systems in the country. This study presents the potential and ability of Twitter in tracking early detection of COVID-19, monitoring the dissemination of information, and exploration of public awareness and attitudes among Nigerians. Tweets mentioning COVID-19 and related keywords were collected in 11 batches via the NCapture™ plugin available on Google Chrome from February 20 - May 6, 2020. The analysis includes a time series analysis to track the distribution of data and content analysis to analyze the knowledge and attitudes of Nigerians. A total of 67,989 tweets (1,484 unique and 66,505 retweets) citing COVID-19 and related keywords were returned. The Tweets started to emerge earlier to the first confirmed case in Nigeria while maintaining a dangling-upward movement up to the 11th week under study. Matters arising from the tweets include a dearth of information on COVID-19 and optimism among others. The results provide insight into the intersection of SNSs and public health surveillance. Results show how helpful Twitter is to educate education in public health. Health organizations and the government may benefit from paying attention to both amusing and emotional contents from the Twitter community to formulate a viable policy for treatment and control.