Probiotic Yoghourt for Health, Nutrition and Women's Empowerment in Kenya: A Community-Based Approach
Bibliographic record
Abstract
The dissertation aims to examine the impacts of probiotic yoghourt on health, nutrition and women’s empowerment within the context of HIV/AIDS in Kenya. Mixed methods that combine quantiative and qualitative approaches are used to understand the effects of probiotic yoghourt on the health, nutrition and quality of life for men and women. Results of the quantiative analysis (n=227) demonstrated that the probiotic yoghourt confers a variety of health benefits – physiological (fewer urogenital conditions and digestive problems; reduced dependence on medical treatment), and psychological (perceived improvements with bodily appearance, felt an increased meaningfulness with life). Results of the qualitative analysis (n=26) revealed an overall improved quality of life based on the six domains of the WHOQOL assessment tool.\nA supplemental qualtiative study and analysis that examines the ways in which this health and development initiative promotes empowerment, social and economic development revealed that while there are substantial and important direct and indirect benefits, there are challenges with group dynamics, class, and power structures.\nTheoretically, the study highlights the need to revisit the group approach of health and development projects. While this method undebiably empowers the women at the individual level within a number of domains, the group structure can be cosnidered to counteract some of the gains and positive effects. Methodologically, the research shows the value of employing a mixed methods design. Usually, biomedical research using clinical study designs do not adopt mixed methods to describe the experiences of the participants. Building on the survey findings, deeper and richer insights into the impacts of the probiotic yoghourt on the health and quality of life of participants is gained. Lastly, the findings from this research provides a platform for policy makers to re-examine the importance and need to incorporate nutritional support programmes that are holistic and mutli-faceted, targeting marginalized groups.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.004 | 0.002 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.007 | 0.002 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.004 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.005 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".