Sera Lewise Young
Biographic Data
| ID | 129777 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Sera Lewise Young |
| GIVEN NAMES | Sera Lewise |
| FAMILY NAME | Young |
| SIGNATURE | YOUNG S L |
| AFFILIATIONS | Northwestern University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-1763-1218 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 75 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 354 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 75 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2004 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 7 |
Water Insecurity is Associated with Intimate Partner Violence Among Women Living with HIV in Western Kenya
Gender equality and quality of life must be central to the design and delivery of sanitation
box Sanitation is critical to improving quality of life and gender equality
Interacting Water Insecurity and Food Insecurity: Recent Advances in Theory and Application
Brewis, Workman et al. (2020) provided a basis for significant subsequent advancement in understanding the interplay between household water insecurity and food insecurity across diverse global contexts. This commentary reflects on the subsequent evolution of research and its application in the 5 years since the study's initial online publication in AJHB , highlighting dynamic mechanisms that link water insecurity and food insecurity and the impl…
In Memoriam: Dr. Gretel H. Pelto, Matriarch of Applied Nutritional and Medical Anthropology
The Water Insecurity Experiences (Wise) Scales are suitable for use in high-income settings: Findings from cognitive interviews and nationally representative surveys
The Water Insecurity Experiences Scales are validated tools for reliably and comparably assessing experiences with water access and use in low- and middle-income countries. Although theoretically applicable in high-income countries, their performance in these settings has not been assessed. This study therefore examined whether the Water Insecurity Experiences Scales function similarly in high-income countries, and if they generated measures comp…
Household water security is a mediator of household food security in a nationally representative sample of Mexico
Objective: Explore the relationship between water insecurity (WI) and food security and their covariates in Mexican households. Design: A cross-sectional study with nationally representative data from the National Health and Nutrition Survey-Continuous 2021 (in Spanish, ENSANUT-Continua 2021), collected data from 12 619 households. Setting: WI was measured using the Household Water Insecurity Experiences (HWISE) Scale in Spanish and adapted to th…
Food insecurity and water insecurity measurement in Brazil: Sustainable Development Goals monitoring through experiential scales
Toward a more systematic understanding of water insecurity coping strategies: Insights from 11 global sites
INTRODUCTION: Water insecurity-the inability to access and benefit from affordable, reliable and safe water for basic needs-is a considerable global health threat. With the urgent need to target interventions to the most vulnerable, accurate and meaningful measurement is a priority. Households use diverse strategies to cope with water insecurity; however, these have not been systematically characterised nor measured. The Food Insecurity Coping St…
Association of pica with cortisol and inflammation among Latina pregnant women
Pica, the urge to consume items generally not considered food, such as dirt, raw starch, and ice, are particularly common among pregnant women. However, the biology of pica in pregnancy is not well understood. Therefore, this study aimed to assess how pica relates to endocrine stress and immune biomarkers in a cohort of pregnant Latina women in Southern California. Thirty‐four women completed a structured pica questionnaire. Maternal urinary cort…
Water insecurity is associated with intimate partner violence among female adolescents and youth but not males in rural Tanzania: A cross-sectional study
Food insecurity increases intimate partner violence (IPV), but less is known about water insecurity (WI) and IPV. We examined the association between household WI and IPV among adolescents and youth in the Mbeya and Iringa regions of Tanzania. The cross-sectional sample comprised 977 males and females aged 18-23 years living in rural, impoverished households. We conducted multivariate logistic regression analyses to estimate the association betwe…
Variations in household water affordability and water insecurity: An intersectional perspective from 18 low- and middle-income countries
Compounding systems of marginalization differentiate and shape water-related risks. Yet, quantitative water security scholarship rarely assesses such risks through intersectionality, a paradigm that conceptualizes and examines racial, gendered, class, and other oppressions as interdependent. Using an intersectionality approach, we analyze the relationships between household head gender and self-reported socio-economic status, and water affordabil…
The co-occurrence of water insecurity and food insecurity among Daasanach pastoralists in northern Kenya
Objective: Water plays a critical role in the production of food and preparation of nutritious meals, yet few studies have examined the relationship between water and food insecurity. The primary objective of this study, therefore, was to examine how experiences of household water insecurity (HWI) relate to experiences of household food insecurity (HFI) among a pastoralist population living in an arid, water-stressed region of northern Kenya. Des…
The people here knew how I used to live, but now I have to start again: Lived experiences and expectations of the displaced and non-displaced women affected by the Thwake Multipurpose Dam construction…
Pathways linking social support, self-efficacy, and exclusive breastfeeding among women in northern Uganda
Despite improvements in infant feeding practices over the past two decades, the prevalence of exclusive breastfeeding (EBF) is below global targets. Social support can create an enabling environment for recommended infant feeding practices such as EBF, but the types of social support most important for sustained EBF and their potential mechanisms of action have not been thoroughly characterized. We therefore aimed to assess the relationship betwe…
A novel measure of developing countries' agricultural and food policy readiness
The syndemic effects of food insecurity, water insecurity, and HIV on depressive symptomatology among Kenyan women
Water sharing is a distressing form of reciprocity: Shame, upset, anger, and conflict over water in twenty cross-cultural sites
Anthropological theories of reciprocity suggest it enhances prestige, social solidarity, and material security. Yet, some ethnographic cases suggest that water sharing-a form of reciprocity newly gaining scholarly attention-might work in the opposite way, increasing conflict and emotional distress. Using cross-cultural survey data from twenty global sites (n = 4,267), we test how household water reciprocity (giving and receiving) is associated wi…
Selecting between iron-rich and clay-rich soils: A geophagy field experiment with black-and-white colobus monkeys in the Budongo Forest Reserve, Uganda
The Individual Water Insecurity Experiences (Iwise) Scale: Reliability, equivalence and validity of an individual-level measure of water security
OBJECTIVE: The lack of a validated and cross-culturally equivalent scale for measuring individual-level water insecurity has prevented identification of those most vulnerable to it. Therefore, we developed the 12-item Individual Water InSecurity Experiences (IWISE) Scale to comparably measure individual experiences with access, use, and stability (reliability) of water. Here, we examine the reliability, cross-country equivalence, and cross-countr…
Addressing the social life cycle inventory analysis data gap: Insights from a case study of cobalt mining in the Democratic Republic of the Congo
Water Insecurity is Associated with Lack of Viral Suppression and Greater Odds of Aids-Defining Illnesses Among Adults with HIV in Western Kenya
Reliable access to safe and acceptable water in sufficient quantities (i.e., water security) is important for medication adherence and limiting pathogen exposure, yet prior studies have only considered the role of food security as a social determinant of HIV-related health. Therefore, the objective of this analysis was to assess the relationships between household water insecurity and HIV-related outcomes among adults living with HIV in western K…
Food security mediates the decrease in women’s depressive symptoms in a participatory nutrition-sensitive agroecology intervention in rural Tanzania
Objective: To investigate if food security mediated the impact of a nutrition-sensitive agroecology intervention on women’s depressive symptoms. Design: We used annual longitudinal data (four time points) from a cluster-randomised effectiveness trial of a participatory nutrition-sensitive agroecology intervention, the Singida Nutrition and Agroecology Project. Structural equation modelling estimation of total, natural direct and natural indirect …
Viewpoint: The measurement of water access and use is key for more effective food and nutrition policy
Water-related indicators have predominantly focused on water availability and water infrastructure; experiences with water access and use have received far less attention. However, the assessment of water security using disaggregated indicators that are more proximal to the human experience, i.e., household and individual access and use, has enormous potential for transforming our understanding of human well-being, in much the same way that the s…
The embodiment of water insecurity: Injuries and chronic stress in lowland Bolivia
In pursuit of ‘safe’ water: The burden of personal injury from water fetching in 21 low-income and middle-income countries
INTRODUCTION: Water fetching for household needs can cause injury, but documentation of the burden of harm globally has been limited. We described the frequency, characteristics and correlates of water-fetching injuries in 24 sites in 21 low-income and middle-income countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America and the Caribbean. METHODS: In a survey of 6291 randomly selected households, respondents reported whether and how they had experienced wat…
Best Practices for Developing and Validating Scales for Health, Social, and Behavioral Research: A Primer
Scale development and validation are critical to much of the work in the health, social, and behavioral sciences. However, the constellation of techniques required for scale development and evaluation can be onerous, jargon-filled, unfamiliar, and resource-intensive. Further, it is often not a part of graduate training. Therefore, our goal was to concisely review the process of scale development in as straightforward a manner as possible, both to…
Water sharing, reciprocity, and need: A comparative study of interhousehold water transfers in sub-Saharan Africa
Water sharing between households could crucially mitigate short-term household water shortages, yet it is a vastly understudied phenomenon. Here we use comparative survey data from eight sites in seven sub-Saharan African countries (Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria, and Uganda) to answer three questions: With whom do households share water? What is expected in return? And what roles do need and affordabili…
The embodiment of water insecurity: Injuries and chronic stress in lowland Bolivia
Water sharing is a distressing form of reciprocity: Shame, upset, anger, and conflict over water in twenty cross-cultural sites
Anthropological theories of reciprocity suggest it enhances prestige, social solidarity, and material security. Yet, some ethnographic cases suggest that water sharing-a form of reciprocity newly gaining scholarly attention-might work in the opposite way, increasing conflict and emotional distress. Using cross-cultural survey data from twenty global sites (n = 4,267), we test how household water reciprocity (giving and receiving) is associated wi…
The syndemic effects of food insecurity, water insecurity, and HIV on depressive symptomatology among Kenyan women
Water borrowing is consistently practiced globally and is associated with water-related system failures across diverse environments
Water problems due to scarcity, inaccessibility, or poor quality are a major barrier to household functioning, livelihood, and health globally. Household-to-household water borrowing has been posited as a strategy to alleviate unmet water needs. However, the prevalence and predictors of this practice have not been systematically examined. Therefore, we tested whether water borrowing occurs across diverse global contexts with varying water problem…
Rethinking the value of unpaid care work: Lessons from participatory visual research in central Tanzania
The contemporary international development agenda addresses several important gender issues, including the contribution of unpaid care work (UCW) to human well-being. The inclusion of UCW into the mainstream policy debate is undoubtedly a major milestone in the history of feminist scholarship and activism. However, we argue that the universalistic and capitalocentric assumptions laden in the dominant policy discourse belie the diversity of the li…
The determinants of dietary diversity and nutrition: Ethnonutrition knowledge of local people in the East Usambara Mountains, Tanzania
BACKGROUND: Diet and nutrition-related behaviours are embedded in cultural and environmental contexts: adoption of new knowledge depends on how easily it can be integrated into existing knowledge systems. As dietary diversity promotion becomes an increasingly common component of nutrition education, understanding local nutrition knowledge systems and local concepts about dietary diversity is essential to formulate efficient messages. METHODS: Thi…
Farming for change: Developing a participatory curriculum on agroecology, nutrition, climate change and social equity in Malawi and Tanzania
Pica is prevalent and strongly associated with iron deficiency among Hispanic pregnant women living in the United States
The people here knew how I used to live, but now I have to start again: Lived experiences and expectations of the displaced and non-displaced women affected by the Thwake Multipurpose Dam construction…
Water and sanitation for all in a pandemic
Viewpoint: The measurement of water access and use is key for more effective food and nutrition policy
Water-related indicators have predominantly focused on water availability and water infrastructure; experiences with water access and use have received far less attention. However, the assessment of water security using disaggregated indicators that are more proximal to the human experience, i.e., household and individual access and use, has enormous potential for transforming our understanding of human well-being, in much the same way that the s…
As Long As We Have the Mine, We'll Have Water: Exploring Water Insecurity in Appalachia
Water insecurity is a condition when affordability, reliability, adequacy, or safety of water is significantly reduced or unattainable resulting in jeopardized well-being. Water insecurity co-occurs with poverty and social and economic exclusion. It is gaining increasing attention from the scholarly community, but most work has focused on low- and middle-income countries. In this article, we explore water insecurity in Appalachian Kentucky. Throu…
A novel measure of developing countries' agricultural and food policy readiness
Linking traditional treatments of maternal anaemia to iron supplement use: An ethnographic case study from Pemba Island, Zanzibar
Iron deficiency anaemia is the most common form of malnutrition in the world. Pregnant women are particularly at risk for anaemia. Insufficient attention has been paid to the reasons underlying the only moderate success of iron supplementation. In this article an additional factor that can affect the use of iron supplements is proposed: their relevance to 'traditional' or nonbiomedical treatments of anaemia. This paper represents what is to our k…
Infant feeding practices among HIV-positive women in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, indicate a need for more intensive infant feeding counselling
Objective To assess feeding practices of infants born to HIV-positive women in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. These data then served as a proxy to evaluate the adequacy of current infant feeding counselling. Design A cross-sectional survey of infant feeding behaviours. Setting Four clinics in greater Dar es Salaam in early 2008. Subjects A total of 196 HIV-positive mothers of children aged 6–10 months recruited from HIV clinics. Results Initiation of b…
Conceptual framework for understanding the bidirectional links between food insecurity and HIV/Aids
Social determinants, lived experiences, and consequences of household food insecurity among persons living with HIV/Aids on the shore of Lake Victoria, Kenya
Food insecurity is a considerable challenge in sub-Saharan Africa, disproportionately affecting persons living with HIV/AIDS. This study investigates the lived experience, determinants, and consequences of food insecurity and hunger among individuals living with HIV/AIDS on the shore of Lake Victoria in Suba District, Kenya. Parallel mixed methods included semi-structured interviews and administration of the Household Food Insecurity Access Scale…
Biocultural Considerations of Food Cravings and Aversions: An Introduction
Food is fundamental to our existence as humans, but assertions about the kinds of foods that are appealing or repulsive vary widely. This thematic issue deals with assessments of food as desirable, or not, in order to understand the complex reasons why some foods are strongly craved while others are avoided. To do this, the five articles in this issue situate food cravings and aversions bioculturally, in the contexts of our history as a species, …
Appetite Sensations and Nausea and Vomiting in Pregnancy: An Overview of the Explanations
We review information about the potential mechanisms underlying nausea and vomiting in pregnancy (NVP), food cravings, and/or aversions in pregnancy. In addition to providing overviews about genetic predispositions and hormonal associations with appetite sensations and NVP, we review two functional explanations: the "maternal and embryo protection" and the "placental growth and development" hypotheses. We conclude with a discussion about the kind…
Patterns of Nausea, Vomiting, Aversions, and Cravings during Pregnancy on Pemba Island, Zanzibar, Tanzania
The function(s) of nausea and vomiting in pregnancy (NVP) and its accompanying aversions and cravings remain unresolved. Neither of the two major adaptive hypotheses, "maternal/embryo protection" and "placental growth," have been tested using data from a low-income country. We examined NVP in a cross-sectional study of 427 pregnant women. The prevalence of NVP was comparable to resource-rich contexts: 69.6%, 55.5%, 70.0%, and 64.9% reported NVP, …
What Are We Assessing When We Measure Food Security? A Compendium and Review of Current Metrics
Socio-demographic and health associations with body mass index at the time of enrollment in HIV care in Nyanza Province, Kenya
Low body mass index (BMI) at the time of enrollment into HIV care has been shown to be a strong predictor of mortality independent of CD4 count. This study investigated socio-demographic associations with underweight (BMI < 18.5) among adults in Nyanza Province, Kenya, upon enrollment into HIV care. BMI, socio-demographic, and health data from a cross-sectional sample of 8254 women and 3533 men were gathered upon enrollment in the Family AIDS Car…
A Review of the Role of Food Insecurity in Adherence to Care and Treatment Among Adult and Pediatric Populations Living with HIV and Aids
Commonalities and differences in infant feeding attitudes and practices in the context of HIV in sub-Saharan Africa: A metasynthesis
Exclusive breastfeeding (EBF) has been identified as a key intervention to promote infant health and to reduce the vertical transmission of HIV. Despite this knowledge and increased resources to promote EBF, the practice in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) remains low among HIV+ women. Although a number of qualitative studies have been conducted throughout SSA, the influences on and consequences of infant feeding choices of HIV+ mothers' findings have no…
Pica during pregnancy among M exican‐born women: A formative study
Although pica, the craving and purposive consumption of non-food substances, is common among many populations, especially during pregnancy, the health consequences are not well understood. Further, very little is known about pica among Mexican populations in the United States and Mexico. Therefore, we conducted formative research to understand pica in this understudied population. Our objectives were to identify the frequency and types of pica be…
Household Food Insecurity, Maternal Nutritional Status, and Infant Feeding Practices Among HIV-infected Ugandan Women Receiving Combination Antiretroviral Therapy
I Have Remained Strong Because of That Food”: Acceptability and Use of Lipid-Based Nutrient Supplements Among Pregnant HIV-Infected Ugandan Women Receiving Combination Antiretroviral Therapy
A meta‐analysis of pica and micronutrient status
OBJECTIVES: Pica is the craving for and consumption of nonfood items, including the ingestion of earth (geophagy), raw starch (amylophagy), and ice (pagophagy). Pica has long been associated with micronutrient deficiencies, but the strength of this relationship is unclear. We aimed to evaluate the association between pica behavior and the risk of being anemic or having low hemoglobin (Hb), hematocrit (Hct), or plasma zinc (Zn) concentrations. MET…
Reliability and validity of an individually focused food insecurity access scale for assessing inadequate access to food among pregnant Ugandan women of mixed HIV status
Objective To determine the reliability, validity and correlates of measures of food insecurity (FI) obtained using an individually focused food insecurity access scale (IFIAS) among pregnant women of mixed HIV status in northern Uganda. Design A mixed-methods study involving cognitive interviews nested within a cross-sectional survey. Setting The antenatal care clinic of Gulu Regional Referral Hospital. Subjects Survey respondents included 403 pr…
A comprehensive review of the barriers and promoters health workers experience in delivering prevention of vertical transmission of HIV services in sub-Saharan Africa
Despite significant biomedical and policy advances, 199,000 infants and young children in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) became infected with HIV in 2013, indicating challenges to implementation of these advances. To understand the nature of these challenges, we sought to (1) characterize the barriers and facilitators that health workers encountered delivering prevention of vertical transmission of HIV (PVT) services in SSA and (2) evaluate the use of …
Translating formative research findings into a behaviour change strategy to promote antenatal calcium and iron and folic acid supplementation in western Kenya
The World Health Organization now recommends integrating calcium supplements into antenatal micronutrient supplementation programmes to prevent pre-eclampsia, a leading cause of maternal mortality. As countries consider integrating calcium supplementation into antenatal care (ANC), it is important to identify context-specific barriers and facilitators to delivery and adherence. Such insights can be gained from women's and health workers' experien…
The association between food insecurity and depressive symptoms severity among pregnant women differs by social support category: A cross‐sectional study
Common mental disorders, such as depression and anxiety, affect approximately 16% of pregnant women in low- and middle-income countries. Food insecurity (FI) has been shown to be associated with depressive symptoms. It has also been suggested that the association between FI and depressive symptoms is moderated by social support (SS); however, there is limited evidence of these associations among pregnant women living in low-income and middle-inco…
Perinatal Depression Among HIV-Infected Women in KwaZulu-Natal South Africa: Prenatal Depression Predicts Lower Rates of Exclusive Breastfeeding
Progress in household water insecurity metrics: A cross‐disciplinary approach
Despite the central importance of water for human wellbeing and development, researchers and practitioners have few tools to quantitatively measure, assess, and compare the scope and scale of household and individual water insecurity across cultural and climatic variations. There are multiple definitions of water insecurity, and the analytical tools for measuring household‐level water insecurity are in their infancy. This paper provides an overvi…
Advancing human capabilities for water security: A relational approach
The determinants of dietary diversity and nutrition: Ethnonutrition knowledge of local people in the East Usambara Mountains, Tanzania
BACKGROUND: Diet and nutrition-related behaviours are embedded in cultural and environmental contexts: adoption of new knowledge depends on how easily it can be integrated into existing knowledge systems. As dietary diversity promotion becomes an increasingly common component of nutrition education, understanding local nutrition knowledge systems and local concepts about dietary diversity is essential to formulate efficient messages. METHODS: Thi…
Geophagic earths consumed by women in w estern K enya contain dangerous levels of lead, arsenic, and iron
OBJECTIVES: Geophagy is commonly reported by pregnant women and children, yet its causes and consequences remain poorly understood. Therefore, we sought to determine if geophagy could contribute micronutrients and/or be a source of heavy metal exposure by examining the elemental composition of earths consumed in Kakamega, Kenya. METHODS: Ten samples of earths commonly consumed during pregnancy were collected by study enumerators and analyzed usin…
HIV status disclosure among postpartum women in rural Tanzania: Predictors, experiences and uptake of a nurse-facilitated disclosure intervention
HIV status disclosure is a key support strategy to start and maintain HIV care and treatment and to reduce HIV transmission. We explored the patterns and correlates of disclosure and described the effectiveness of nurse-facilitated disclosure among HIV-infected mothers of infants in coastal Tanzania. We enrolled 400 HIV positive women in an observational longitudinal study in 2011, interviewed them about maternal sociodemographic and economic cha…
Medicine (48 works) · Child Nutrition and Water Access (40 works) · Environmental health (34 works) · Geography (31 works) · Food Security and Health in Diverse Populations (21 works) · Psychology (21 works) · Food security (19 works) · Sociology (19 works) · Demography (18 works) · Economics (18 works)