ABSTRACT
Introduction: In South Africa's diverse population, queer voices emerge as change agents, proposing new and critical solutions to reform sexual and reproductive healthcare services in the pursuit of inclusivity and equality. Our research aimed to explore and describe queer individuals' perceptions and solutions for promoting sexual-reproductive healthcare services and needs (SRHSN) in Gauteng Province, South Africa. Methodology: An explorative-descriptive study was performed for this research. A total of 22 queer individuals was recruited using respondent-driven sampling (RDS) within a queer-inclusive non-governmental organization (NGO) clinic in Gauteng Province, South Africa. Semi-structured interviews and an interview guide were utilized to collect data using English. Thematic content analysis was applied using NVivo 14. Results: Four main themes and related sub-themes were revealed from the study including the creation of healthcare equity for queer individuals, empowering and supporting healthcare providers (HCPs) to enhance skills, knowledge, and expertise, raising awareness on queer-related issues, and different stakeholders' involvement. Conclusion: As we navigate South Africa's complex landscape of SRHSN for queer individuals, the crucial opinions and solutions offered by queer people not only challenge the status quo but also reveal an approach to a better, more equitable, empathetic, and accommodating healthcare system for everyone. Future studies should ensure the inclusiveness of queer individuals with the interest of improving their health not just for research outputs.
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: Queer individuals continue to be marginalized in South Africa; they experience various health care challenges (eg, stigma, discrimination, prejudice, harassment, and humiliation), mental health issues (eg, suicide and depression), and an increased spread of HIV or AIDS and sexually transmitted illnesses (STIs; chlamydia, gonorrhea, and syphilis). Mobile health (mHealth) apps have the potential to resolve the health care deficits experienced by health care providers when managing queer individuals and by queer individuals when accessing sexual-reproductive health care services and needs, thus ensuring inclusivity and the promotion of health and well-being. Studies have proven that the nominal group technique (NGT) could be used to solve different social and health problems and develop innovative solutions. This technique ensures that different voices are represented during decision-making processes and leads to robust results. OBJECTIVE: This study aims to identify important contents to include in the development of an mHealth app for addressing the sexual-reproductive health care services and needs of queer individuals. METHODS: We invited a group of 13 experts from different fields, such as researchers, queer activists, sexual and reproductive health experts, private practicing health care providers, innovators, and private health care stakeholders, to take part in a face-to-face NGT. The NGT was conducted in the form of a workshop with 1 moderator, 2 research assistants, and 1 principal investigator. The workshop lasted approximately 2 hours 46 minutes and 55 seconds. We followed and applied 5 NGT steps in the workshop for experts to reach consensus. The main question that experts were expected to answer was as follows: Which content should be included in the mHealth app for addressing sexual-reproductive health care services and needs for queer individuals? This question was guided by user demographics and background, health education and information, privacy and security, accessibility and inclusivity, functionality and menu options, personalization and user engagement, service integration and partnerships, feedback and improvement, cultural sensitivity and ethical considerations, legal and regulatory compliance, and connectivity and data use. RESULTS: Overall, experts voted and ranked the following main icons: menu options (66 points), privacy and security (39 points), user engagement (27 points), information hub (26 points), user demographics (20 points), connectivity (16 points), service integration and partnerships (10 points), functionalities (10 points), and accessibility and inclusivity (7 points). CONCLUSIONS: Conducting an NGT with experts from different fields, possessing vast skill sets, knowledge, and expertise, enabled us to obtain targeted data on the development of an mHealth app to address sexual-reproductive health care services and needs for queer individuals. This approach emphasized the usefulness of a multidisciplinary perspective to inform the development of our mHealth app and demonstrated the future need for continuity in using this approach for other digital health care innovations and interventions.
ABSTRACT
There are ongoing debates and controversies about whether genderqueer individuals have specific sexual-reproductive healthcare services and needs (SRHSNs). This study intended to identify and explore queer-specific SRHSNs among healthcare providers (HCPs) in Gauteng Province, South Africa. This was an exploratory sequential mixed-methods study, and this article focuses on the qualitative findings of that investigation. Thirty-three HCPs were purposively sampled, and semi-structured one-on-one interviews were used to collect data between September and November 2023. The data were analyzed using thematic content analysis (TCA). The results of this study revealed nine main themes: a crucial need for inclusive healthcare facilities; a need for psychological, counseling, and therapeutic support in sexual and reproductive healthcare; access to sexual-reproductive education and integrating support; suggested reproductive health services for queer sexual wellness; improved accessibility and particular queer reproductive healthcare; optimizing services related to human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) access, and sexually transmitted illness (STI) treatment; genderqueer persons' parenthood aspirations and empowerment; the safe availability of intimacy tools; and navigation transitions. A holistic and inclusive healthcare approach that fits psychological support, comprehensive sexual-reproductive education, and specialized services to accommodate the unique needs of queer individuals should be implemented and made easily accessible.
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: The use of social media platforms to seek information continues to increase. Social media platforms can be used to disseminate important information to people worldwide instantaneously. However, their viral nature also makes it easy to share misinformation, disinformation, unverified information, and fake news. The unprecedented reliance on social media platforms to seek information during the COVID-19 pandemic was accompanied by increased incidents of misinformation and disinformation. Consequently, there was an increase in the number of scientific publications related to the role of social media in disseminating health misinformation and disinformation at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Health misinformation and disinformation, especially in periods of global public health disasters, can lead to the erosion of trust in policy makers at best and fatal consequences at worst. OBJECTIVE: This paper reports a bibliometric analysis aimed at investigating the evolution of research publications related to the role of social media as a driver of health misinformation and disinformation since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Additionally, this study aimed to identify the top trending keywords, niche topics, authors, and publishers for publishing papers related to the current research, as well as the global collaboration between authors on topics related to the role of social media in health misinformation and disinformation since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. METHODS: The Scopus database was accessed on June 8, 2023, using a combination of Medical Subject Heading and author-defined terms to create the following search phrases that targeted the title, abstract, and keyword fields: ("Health*" OR "Medical") AND ("Misinformation" OR "Disinformation" OR "Fake News") AND ("Social media" OR "Twitter" OR "Facebook" OR "YouTube" OR "WhatsApp" OR "Instagram" OR "TikTok") AND ("Pandemic*" OR "Corona*" OR "Covid*"). A total of 943 research papers published between 2020 and June 2023 were analyzed using Microsoft Excel (Microsoft Corporation), VOSviewer (Centre for Science and Technology Studies, Leiden University), and the Biblioshiny package in Bibliometrix (K-Synth Srl) for RStudio (Posit, PBC). RESULTS: The highest number of publications was from 2022 (387/943, 41%). Most publications (725/943, 76.9%) were articles. JMIR published the most research papers (54/943, 5.7%). Authors from the United States collaborated the most, with 311 coauthored research papers. The keywords "Covid-19," "social media," and "misinformation" were the top 3 trending keywords, whereas "learning systems," "learning models," and "learning algorithms" were revealed as the niche topics on the role of social media in health misinformation and disinformation during the COVID-19 outbreak. CONCLUSIONS: Collaborations between authors can increase their productivity and citation counts. Niche topics such as "learning systems," "learning models," and "learning algorithms" could be exploited by researchers in future studies to analyze the influence of social media on health misinformation and disinformation during periods of global public health emergencies.