Characterizing Communicative Participation in Multilingual Jamaican Preschoolers.

PURPOSE: This study characterized communicative participation and related aspects of functional communication for Jamaican Creole (JC)-English-speaking preschoolers with and without functionally defined speech sound disorders (fSSDs). This study included parent reports and direct assessment measures from an existing corpus of baseline data collected prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. METHOD: The communicative participation of typically developing (TD; n = 226) bilingual JC-English-speaking preschoolers and those with fSSDs (n = 39) was documented using the Focus on the Outcomes of Communication Under Six (FOCUS). Functional speech intelligibility was recorded using the Intelligibility in Context Scale (ICS) in English and JC (ICS-JC). Objective measures of speech production were collected through direct child assessment in both languages and then transcribed and calculated for percent of consonants (PCC), vowels (PVC), and phonemes correct (PPC). Within-group relationships were explored using association testing, and differences between groups were explored through multivariate analyses. RESULTS: FOCUS scores and ICS and ICS-JC scores were found to be minimally to moderately related for Jamaican preschoolers in the TD group (r = .28-.34, p < .002) and strongly related in the fSSD group (r = .56-.60, p < .002). No relations were observed between the FOCUS scores and PCC/PVC/PPC in either language. There was a statistically significant difference between all FOCUS scores for Jamaican preschoolers in the TD and fSSD groups (p ≤ .002). CONCLUSIONS: These findings provide additional evidence for using the FOCUS beyond documenting change in communicative participation to support clinical decision-making in planning and developing speech-language interventions. This study also documents an important characterization of JC-English-speaking children with and without fSSDs, offering data on children's abilities that can be used in future comparisons of communicative participation and speech functioning observed during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond.

Taxi drivers and COVID-19 in Jamaica: Occupationally related income decline and health behaviour.

Income and employment are recognised as social determinants of health. Occupationally related exposures and working conditions impact health behaviours. Taxi drivers have been recognised as an occupationally COVID-19 at-risk group. COVID-19 threatens their lives and livelihoods. This study describes self-reported income changes attributed to the COVID-19 pandemic among taxi drivers. Associations between percentage change in income and reported prevention practices were ascertained. In May 2020, a cross-sectional study was done among 282 taxi drivers in the Kingston and St. Andrew Metropolitan Area in Jamaica. Multi-stage sampling was used to select taxi driver from seven hubs. Data collection utilised a 28-item questionnaire. Self-reported income before and during the COVID-19 pandemic was ascertained and correlations between relative changes in income and COVID-19 prevention practices were assessed. The median pre-COVID-19 monthly income was USD 1,428.57 (IQR = 1,467.26), about USD 51/day. Median monthly income since the COVID-19 outbreak was USD 500 (IQR = 472.37), about USD 18/day, representing a 65% reduction in income. There was a statistically significant association between the relative change in income and the practice of wearing mask while transporting passengers. Generally, as the relative change (decline) in income increased, reported compliance with mask wearing decreased (Spearman's rho = -0.15, p = 0.02). Taxi drivers have experienced marked decline in income due to the COVID-19 pandemic, with implications for health practices and the maintenance of desired health behaviours. Authorities should be cognisant of the economic impact and COVID-related consequences in the taxi industry, as they seek to develop COVID-19 occupationally related prevention and control programmes.

COVID-19 pandemic effects on nursing education: looking through the lens of a developing country.

BACKGROUND: COVID-19 pandemic has impacted the way things are done in walks of life including nursing education in both developing and developed countries. Nursing schools all over the world as well as in developing countries responded to the pandemic following the guidelines of the World Health Organisation and different countries specific guidelines regarding the pandemic. AIM: This reflective piece aims to describe the effect of COVID-19 on nursing education in developing countries. RESULT: Face-to-face teaching and learning were converted to virtual remote learning and clinical experiences suspended to protect the students from the pandemic. Specific but broader responses to the pandemic in the Caribbean and other developing countries have been shaped by financial, political and other contextual factors, especially the level of information technology infrastructure development, and the attendant inequities in access to such technology between the rural and urban areas. Internet accessibility, affordability and reliability in certain areas seem to negatively affect the delivery of nursing education during the COVID-19 lockdown. CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING AND/OR HEALTH POLICY: The impact of COVID-19 on nursing education in the Caribbean and other parts of the world has shown that if adequate measures are put in place by the way of disaster preparedness and preplanned mitigation strategies, future crises like COVID-19 will have less impact on nursing education. Therefore, health policymakers and nursing regulatory bodies in the developing countries should put policies in place that will help in responding, coping and recovering quickly from future occurrences.