Browsing by Subject "Risk and protective factors"
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Hughes, Gail; Hoyo, Catherine; Puoane, Thandi (South African Medical Association, 2006)[more][less]
Abstract: BACKGROUND: In South Africa, former apartheid laws encouraged rural males seeking employment to migrate to urban areas, moving weekly, monthly or annually between their rural families and urban workplaces. The combination of the migrant labour system and long family separations caused an explosion of serious health consequences, among others sexually transmitted infections (STIs) in the migrant population. OBJECTIVE: To describe some correlates of male migration patterns for the rural women left behind, especially the fear of STIs that this engendered in them and their risk-avoidance behaviour. Setting and subjects. In KwaZulu-Natal, 208 prenatal patients who were partners of oscillating male migrant workers were interviewed to determine their demographic and behavioural characteristics, and their fear of STIs. RESULTS: Thirty-six per cent of the rural women said that they were afraid of contracting STIs from their returning migrant partners. Women who saw their partners infrequently were more fearful of STI transmission, and were less able to have sexual communication. However, almost none of the women protected themselves, while only 8% used condoms, primarily for contraceptive purposes. CONCLUSIONS: These results reflect the gender-based power relationships of South African male migrants and their rural partners, the social and economic dependency of the women on their migrant partners, and the women’s social responsibility to bear children. The results point to the need to go beyond interventions that simply seek to modify behaviour without altering the forces that promote risk taking and discourage risk reduction, and the need to develop appropriate interventions to curb STIs and decrease HIV. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10566/260 Files in this item: 1
PuoaneSTIs2006.pdf (563.5Kb) -
Clowes, Lindsay; Lazarus, Sandy; Ratele, Kopano (Medical Research Council, Tygerberg, 2010)[more][less]
Abstract: This article reports on a study that sought to elicit the views of male university students on risk and protective factors to male interpersonal violence. The participants were 116 third-year students who participated in a final year research project in the Women’s and Gender Studies (WGS) Programme at the University of Western Cape (UWC). Each of the students conducted six semistructured face to face interviews with male students. Following initial analyses of the interviews, a video-recorded class discussion was held to discuss the research findings. The data from the class discussion was captured under the four levels of individual, relationship, community and society, utilised by the World Health organization (WHO) in its World Health Report on Violence and Health. The analysis of the class discussion and the students’ own research reports revealed that at the individual level, risk and protective factors primarily revolve around the challenges of constructing a viable masculinity in specific social and economic contexts; at the relationship level, the key factors appear to be the experiences and expectations around gender roles and family dynamics; at the community level, it seems that weak or non-existent community networks and activities feed into increasing the risk of male community members becoming involved in violence. Each of these three levels needs to be understood against the historically specific backdrop of the societal ecological level: the gendered cultural values expressed in and reflectedby the wider social, economic and political contexts. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10566/170 Files in this item: 1
ClowesRisk&Protective2010.pdf (869.8Kb)
Now showing items 1-2 of 2