Evaluation of the Confiance Totale Campaign in Togo: Associations Between Campaign Exposure and Family Planning Outcomes of Interest.

In Togo, family planning (FP) use remains low; only 24.1% of married woman ages 15 to 49 use modern FP. The West Africa Breakthrough ACTION (WABA) project developed the Confiance Totale radio campaign, which used a Saturation+ approach to encourage FP use. This study presents the results of an evaluation of Confiance Totale which investigates associations between campaign exposure and outcomes of interest. Following the broadcasts, the team conducted a cross-sectional household survey among 2,200 respondents ages 18 to 49. Combined and sex-stratified multivariable models predicting outcomes of interest controlled for sex, age, site, marital status, educational attainment, religion, and economic status. Upon hearing a campaign jingle, approximately 45% of participants had heard the campaign. Exposure to the campaign was associated with many ideational and behavioral outcomes including current use of a facility-dependent FP method (OR = 1.77, p < .001). In stratified models, several outcomes were significantly associated with exposure in the women-only models but not in the men-only models. Exposure to Confiance Totale was associated with nearly all ideational and behavioral outcomes of interest, particularly among women. This demonstrates that high dosage broadcasting may be effective in promoting confidence in the health system and improving perceptions of FP.

Evaluating a youth-designed sexual and reproductive health mass and social media campaign in Côte d'Ivoire: triangulation of three independent evaluations.

Merci Mon Héros (MMH) is a youth-designed multi-media campaign seeking to improve sexual and reproductive health and family planning (SRH/FP) outcomes among youth living in nine francophone countries. A mixed methods approach was implemented to assess the MMH campaign progress and impact in Côte d'Ivoire. Three data sources were triangulated to evaluate the campaign: social media listening (October 2019-January 2021); a quantitative cross-sectional monitoring survey (September 2020) with 412 youth (aged 16-24) and 597 adults (aged 25-49); and a qualitative study using a Most Significant Change approach (March 2021), including a total of 24 focus group discussions with youth (aged 15-24) and adults (aged 25+) exposed to the MMH campaign. Data from all three studies were analysed independently and then brought together through a triangulation workshop where the study team compared findings to achieve convergence in evaluation results. Social listening results showed topic-specific online conversations related to MMH campaign spiked significantly during the two-week period after topic-specific campaign posts (p < .05), suggesting potential campaign impact. Survey results showed both adults and youth were more likely to have spoken with someone about FP in the past five months if exposed to the campaign (p < 0.01). Qualitative findings support the campaign's effect on shifting attitudes and behavioural uptake of intergenerational communication among adults and youth. This evaluation shows evidence of MMH's strong potential for impact in encouraging communication and the need to focus efforts on strategies to strengthen supportive adults' communication competencies and redefine what it means to act in support of SRH/FP for youth.

Wash interacts with lamin and affects global nuclear organization.

The cytoplasmic functions of Wiskott-Aldrich syndrome family (WAS) proteins are well established and include roles in cytoskeleton reorganization and membrane-cytoskeletal interactions important for membrane/vesicle trafficking, morphogenesis, immune response, and signal transduction. Misregulation of these proteins is associated with immune deficiency and metastasis [1-4]. Cytoplasmic WAS proteins act as effectors of Rho family GTPases and polymerize branched actin through the Arp2/3 complex [1, 5]. Previously, we identified Drosophila washout (wash) as a new member of the WAS family with essential cytoplasmic roles in early development [6, 7]. Studies in mammalian cells and Dictyostelium suggest that WASH functions primarily in a multiprotein complex that regulates endosome shape and trafficking in an Arp2/3-dependent manner [8-11]. However, roles for classically cytoplasmic proteins in the nucleus are beginning to emerge, in particular, as participants in the regulation of gene expression [12, 13]. Here, we show that Drosophila Wash is present in the nucleus, where it plays a key role in global nuclear organization. wash mutant and knockdown nuclei disrupt subnuclear structures/organelles and exhibit the abnormal wrinkled morphology reminiscent of those observed in diverse laminopathies [14-16]. We find that nuclear Wash interacts with B-type Lamin (Lamin Dm0), and, like Lamin, Wash associates with constitutive heterochromatin. Wash knockdown increases chromatin accessibility of repressive compartments and results in a global redistribution of repressive histone modifications. Thus, our results reveal a novel role for Wash in modulating nucleus morphology and in the organization of both chromatin and non-chromatin nuclear sub-structures.

The Drosophila STUbL protein Degringolade limits HES functions during embryogenesis.

Degringolade (Dgrn) encodes a Drosophila SUMO-targeted ubiquitin ligase (STUbL) protein similar to that of mammalian RNF4. Dgrn facilitates the ubiquitylation of the HES protein Hairy, which disrupts the repressive activity of Hairy by inhibiting the recruitment of its cofactor Groucho. We show that Hey and all HES family members, except Her, interact with Dgrn and are substrates for its E3 ubiquitin ligase activity. Dgrn displays dynamic subcellular localization, accumulates in the nucleus at times when HES family members are active and limits Hey and HES family activity during sex determination, segmentation and neurogenesis. We show that Dgrn interacts with the Notch signaling pathway by it antagonizing the activity of E(spl)-C proteins. dgrn null mutants are female sterile, producing embryos that arrest development after two or three nuclear divisions. These mutant embryos exhibit fragmented or decondensed nuclei and accumulate higher levels of SUMO-conjugated proteins, suggesting a role for Dgrn in genome stability.