What Social Workers Need to Know about Muslims: An Analysis of the Contemporary Social Work Scholarship.

This article analyzes peer-reviewed English-language social work scholarship on Islam and Muslims published between 2011 and 2021. Of these 127 articles, 70 journal venues are represented, and first authors are primarily American (44 percent), followed by British (15 percent) and Canadian (11 percent). A total of 70 journals published studies analyzing data related to Muslims/Islam and social work, with 46 consisting of only one publication between 2011 and 2021. A total of 13 of these journals had a SCImago Journal Rank indicator of over 0.5, and three with rankings over 1.0. The volume of publications was high in 2015 and 2020, in particular. Major themes include faith-aligned and strengths-based approaches, the importance of mosques in the lives of Muslims, the relevance of the hijab in the lives of Muslim women, and the prevalence and impact of sociopolitical stereotypes. The conclusion calls for still greater culturally respectful approaches to the profession that include Islam and Muslim individuals/communities and ensuring that ethics and practice/research continue to evolve in ways that are culturally relevant to diverse communities.

Partnering with organisations beyond academia through strategic collaboration for research and mobilisation in immigrant/ethnic-minority communities.

Community-engaged research needs involving community organisations as partners in research. Often, however, considerations regarding developing a meaningful partnership with community organisations are not highlighted. Researchers need to identify the most appropriate organisation with which to engage and their capacity to be involved. Researchers tend to involve organisations based on their connection to potential participants, which relationship often ends after achieving this objective. Further, the partner organisation may not have the capacity to contribute meaningfully to the research process. As such, it is the researchers' responsibility to build capacity within their partner organisations to encourage more sustainable and meaningful community-engaged research. Organisations pertinent to immigrant/ethnic-minority communities fall into three sectors: public, private and non-profit. While public and private sectors play an important role in addressing issues among immigrant/ethnic-minority communities, their contribution as research partners may be limited. Involving the non-profit sector, which tends to be more accessible and utilitarian and includes both grassroots associations (GAs) and immigrant service providing organisations (ISPOs), is more likely to result in mutually beneficial research partnerships and enhanced community engagement. GAs tend to be deeply rooted within, and thus are often truly representative of, the community. As they may not fully understand their importance from a researcher's perspective, nor have time for research, capacity-building activities are required to address these limitations. Additionally, ISPOs may have a different understanding of research and research priorities. Understanding the difference in perspectives and needs of these organisations, building trust and creating capacity building opportunities are important steps for researchers to consider towards building durable partnerships.

Ramadan fasting is not usually associated with the risk of cardiovascular events: A systematic review and meta-analysis.

Over one billion Muslims worldwide fast during the month of Ramadan. Ramadan fasting brings about some changes in the daily lives of practicing Muslims, especially in their diet and sleep patterns, which are associated with the risk of cardiovascular diseases. Over the years, many original studies have made the effort to identify the possible impact of the Ramadan fast on cardiovascular diseases. This systematic review and meta-analysis is an attempt to present the summary of key findings from those articles and an appraisal of selected literature. A systematic search using keywords of ";Ramadan fasting" and ";cardiovascular diseases" was conducted in primary research article and gray-literature repositories, in combination with hand searching and snow balling. Fifteen studies were finally selected for data extraction on the outcomes of stroke, myocardial infarction, and congestive heart failure. The analysis revealed that the incidence of cardiovascular events during the Ramadan fast was similar to the nonfasting period. Ramadan fast is not associated with any change in incidence of acute cardiovascular disease.