Social ecological factors affecting substance abuse in Ghana (West Africa) using photovoice.

INTRODUCTION: Substance abuse is an important public health issue affecting West Africa; however, there is currently a dearth of literature on the actions needed to address it. The aim of this study was to assess the risks and protective factors of substance abuse in Ghana, West Africa, using the photovoice method. METHODS: This study recruited and trained 10 participants in recovery from substance abuse and undergoing treatment in the greater Accra region of Ghana on the photovoice methodology. Each participant received a disposable camera to take pictures that represented the risk and protective factors pertinent to substance abuse in their communities. They were also given the opportunity to provide narratives of the pictures using pre-identified themes and the different levels of the social-ecological model and participatory action research (PAR). RESULTS: Participants identified at the individual level: ignorance; interpersonal level: family and peer pressure; organizational level: lack of regulation; community level: media, availability of drugs, cost of drugs, urbanization, slum communities and cultural factors; and policy level: lack of regulations and their enforcement. Education and beliefs were cited at the individual level; family at the interpersonal level; religion at the organizational level; organizing youth, media and narcotics anonymous at the community level; and nothing at the policy level. CONCLUSION: This is an exploratory study that will add to the limited body of knowledge in the scientific literature with respect to substance abuse in the country and also help develop interventions to address the respective needs of several communities in Ghana.

Chloroplast SSR polymorphisms in the Compositae and the mode of organellar inheritance in Helianthus annuus.

Because organellar genomes are often uniparentally inherited, chloroplast (cp) and mitochondrial (mt) DNA polymorphisms have become the markers of choice for investigating evolutionary issues such as sex-biased dispersal and the directionality of introgression. To the extent that organellar inheritance is strictly maternal, it has also been suggested that the insertion of transgenes into either the chloroplast or mitochondrial genomes would reduce the likelihood of gene escape via pollen flow from crop fields into wild plant populations. In this paper we describe the adaptation of chloroplast simple sequence repeats (cpSSRs) for use in the Compositae. This work resulted in the identification of 12 loci that are variable across the family, seven of which were further shown to be highly polymorphic within sunflower (Helianthus annuus). We then used these markers, along with a novel mtDNA restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP), to investigate the mode of organellar inheritance in a series of experimental crosses designed to mimic the initial stages of crop-wild hybridization in sunflower. Although we cannot rule out the possibility of extremely rare paternal transmission, our results provide the best evidence to date of strict maternal organellar inheritance in sunflower, suggesting that organellar gene containment may be a viable strategy in sunflower. Moreover, the portability of these markers suggests that they will provide a ready source of cpDNA polymorphisms for use in evolutionary studies across the Compositae.