Understanding the mental health of doctoral researchers: a mixed methods systematic review with meta-analysis and meta-synthesis.

BACKGROUND: Data from studies with undergraduate and postgraduate taught students suggest that they are at an increased risk of having mental health problems, compared to the general population. By contrast, the literature on doctoral researchers (DRs) is far more disparate and unclear. There is a need to bring together current findings and identify what questions still need to be answered. METHODS: We conducted a mixed methods systematic review to summarise the research on doctoral researchers' (DRs) mental health. Our search revealed 52 articles that were included in this review. RESULTS: The results of our meta-analysis found that DRs reported significantly higher stress levels compared with population norm data. Using meta-analyses and meta-synthesis techniques, we found the risk factors with the strongest evidence base were isolation and identifying as female. Social support, viewing the PhD as a process, a positive student-supervisor relationship and engaging in self-care were the most well-established protective factors. CONCLUSIONS: We have identified a critical need for researchers to better coordinate data collection to aid future reviews and allow for clinically meaningful conclusions to be drawn. SYSTEMATIC REVIEW REGISTRATION: PROSPERO registration CRD42018092867.

One Health Integration: A Proposed Framework for a Study on Veterinarians and Zoonotic Disease Management in Ghana.

In parallel with the recent world-wide promotion of One Health (OH) as a policy concept, a growing body of social science studies has raised questions about how successful OH policies and programs have been in managing some global health issues, such as zoonotic diseases. This paper briefly reviews this literature to clarify its critical perspective. Much of the literature on OH also is focused on health management at an international level and has paid less attention to implementation programs and policies for OH at the national and local levels, especially in low-and-middle-income countries (LMICs). Programs to implement OH often are linked to the concept of "integration", a notion that lacks a universal definition, but is nonetheless a central tenet and goal in many OH programs. At the local and national levels, strong differences in perspectives about OH among different professions can be major barriers to integration of those professions into OH implementation. Policies based on integration among professions in sectors like animal, human and environmental health can threaten professions' identities and thus may meet with resistance. Taking into account these criticisms of OH research and implementation, this paper proposes a research framework to probe the dominant social dimensions and power dynamics among professional participants that affect OH implementation programs at the local and national levels in a low-income country. The proposed research focus is the veterinary profession and one aspect of OH in which veterinarians are necessary actors: zoonotic disease management. Results from research framed in this way can have immediate application to the programs under study and can inform more expansive research on the social determinants of successful implementation of OH programs and policies.

Collective resistance to HPAI H5N1 surveillance in the Thai cockfighting community: Insights from a social anthropology study.

Farmers may organize themselves to collectively manage risks such as animal diseases. Our study shows some evidence of such organization among fighting cock owners in Thailand. Fighting cocks were specifically targeted by HPAI (Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza) H5N1 surveillance and control measures in Thailand because they were thought to pose a high risk of spreading diseases. In this work, we used a social-anthropological approach to gain an inside view of the issues associated with HPAI H5N1 surveillance in the cockfighting community in Thailand. Based on a qualitative analysis of data collected through in-depth interviews and observation of cockfighters' practices, we found that fighting cock owners share a sense of belonging to the same community based on a common culture, values, interests, practices, and internal rules, including rules to manage poultry diseases. During the HPAI H5N1 outbreaks, these rules may have contributed to mitigating the potential risk associated with the intense movements of fighting cocks inside the country. Nevertheless, this community, despite the high awareness and know-how of its members regarding poultry diseases, has shown a strong reluctance to comply with HPAI surveillance programs. We suggest that this reluctance is due to important gaps between the logic and rationales underlying surveillance and those associated with cockfighting activities. Our study highlights the need for multi and trans-disciplinary research involving the social sciences to analyze interactions between stakeholders and the collective actions implemented by communities to face risks.

Flow cytometry study of polymorphonuclear neutrophil oxidative burst: a comparison of three fluorescent probes.

BACKGROUND: The use of 2',7'-dichlorofluorescein diacetate (DCFH), dihydrorhodamine 123 (DHR) and hydroethidine (HE) has been described for detecting respiratory burst activity by flow cytometry in polymorphonuclear neutrophil (PMN) suspension. However, their specificities for reactive oxygen species are not well defined. We investigated the reactivity of these probes for detecting superoxide anion (O(2)(* -)), hydrogen peroxide (H(2)O(2)) and/or nitric oxide (NO(z.rad;))-dependent mechanisms. METHODS: PMNs (10(6)/ml) were preincubated for 15 min at 37 degrees C with DCFH (5 micro mol/l), DHR (1 micro mol/l) or HE (10 micro mol/l). Cell suspensions were then split for each probe into five different aliquots containing either no effector or one effector: N-ethylmaleimide (NEM, 150 micro mol/l, NADPH oxidase inhibitor), sodium azide (NaN(3), 50 micro mol/l, peroxidase and catalase inhibitor), N-nitro-L-arginine methyl ester (L-NAME, 1.5 micro mol/l, NO(z.rad;) synthase inhibitor) or H(2)O(2) (30%). At the same time, PMNs were stimulated with phorbol myristate acetate (PMA, 10 micro mol/l) for 10 min at 37 degrees C. Analyses were carried out on a Beckman-Coulter Epics XL equipped with an argon laser (488 nm). Green fluorescences from DCFH and DHR were measured in the FL1 channel and HE fluorescence was analyzed in the FL2 channel. RESULTS: NaN(3) decreased the fluorescence of PMNs incubated with DCFH, indicating that it needs a peroxidase activity to react with H(2)O(2). L-NAME reduced the oxidation of DCFH, showing that it reacts with reactive nitrogen species. DHR was specifically responsive to H(2)O(2) accumulation. HE seemed to be preferentially oxidized by O(2)(* -). CONCLUSIONS: Hence the choice of the probe to be used depends on the reactive species of interest.