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27 September 2021 | Story Rulanzen Martin | Photo Supplied
From the left; Prof Michelle Engelbrecht (center), Director of the CHSR&D at the UFS, together with colleagues Dr Gladys Kigozi (right) and Prof Christo Heunis, is conducting various social sciences-orientated research projects on health and health systems.

The Centre for Health Systems Research and Development (CHSR&D) in the Faculty of the Humanities at the University of the Free State (UFS) has been at the forefront of research on the societal and human impact of COVID-19. The CHSR&D has investigated the effects of the pandemic on, among others, post-traumatic stress and the coping strategies of nurses, and is currently undertaking a research project looking at vaccine literacy and acceptability in South Africa through an online survey, which has already attracted more than 9 500 respondents.

Prof Michelle Engelbrecht
, Director of the CHSR&D, says it is important not to lose sight of the impact that the pandemic has had on society and individuals. “It has affected all aspects of life, caused economic disruptions, and posed immense challenges to both public and private healthcare, food systems, education, and employment,” she says. For the CHSR&D researchers, it is important to understand the health and socio-economic impacts in order to inform interventions and policy. 

Established in 1993, the CHSR&D stems from a rich tradition of research and training in medical sociology and sociology of health. As a centre, they generate and disseminate research findings and information on health and health systems to promote transformation in policy and practice in the South African healthcare system.

A study on the impact of the pandemic on nurses

In early 2021, the CHSR&D completed a project on the post-traumatic stress and coping strategies of South African nurses during the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic.  This study was one the first to examine how the pandemic influenced the post-traumatic stress and coping strategies of nurses in the country. It was found that 44% of nurses were experiencing post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which was comparatively higher than their counterparts in other countries. Furthermore, a lack of preparedness to manage COVID-19 patients, poorer health, and avoidance coping mechanisms were associated with increased PTSD in nurses. Nurses voiced a need for emotional support and empathy from their managers. 

Some of the intervention strategies recommended by the nurses included emotional, psychological, and debriefing sessions focusing on positive coping strategies to address stress effectively; positive and open communication between managers and their subordinates; psychological support through the Employee Assistance Programme and occupational health units; and an uninterrupted supply of quality personal protective equipment. The findings of this project were shared with the Free State Department of Health (FSDoH).

Ongoing research projects

As of 1 September 2021, the CHSR&D commenced with a national online survey on COVID-19 vaccine literacy and acceptability. While there are a number of studies looking at the uptake of COVID-19 vaccines, Dr Gladys Kigozi notes that “this study is novel, as there is a lack of information about vaccine literacy, which may be defined as the degree to which people have the capacity to obtain, process, and understand basic health information and services to make appropriate health decisions.”. The anonymous online survey is available through social media and the Moya messaging application.
 
The CHSR&D, together with a team from the FSDoH and the World Health Organisation, are also collaborating on a project looking at the impact of COVID-19 on essential health services, mortality in hospital-admitted patients, and outcomes in patients with a history of tuberculosis. According to Prof Christo Heunis, “The COVID-19 pandemic has become infamous for crippling healthcare systems. Resources and staff are being diverted to test and provide treatment for people with presumed or diagnosed COVID-19, and thus some other healthcare services are being compromised to meet the demands of caring for COVID-19 patients.” It is thus imperative to measure the impact of the pandemic on essential health services and treatment outcomes. 


Interdisciplinary research project focusing on the health and well-being of vulnerable families 

The CHSR&D, together with the UFS Department of Social Work, the School of Nursing, and the Disaster Management Training and Education Centre for Africa (DiMTEC), will commence with a study investigating the impact of COVID-19 on the health and well-being of vulnerable families in the Mangaung Metropolitan area. This project is funded by a UFS interdisciplinary grant.  While the study is limited to the Mangaung Metropolitan area, it has the potential to inform health and social policy in other metropolitan areas in South Africa – particularly with regard to preparedness and management of pandemics such as COVID-19. 

News Archive

Is milk really so well-known, asks UFS’s Prof. Osthoff
2011-03-17

Prof. Garry Osthoff
Photo: Stephen Collett

Prof. Garry Osthoff opened a whole new world of milk to the audience in his inaugural lecture, Milk: the well-known (?) food, in our Department of Microbial, Biochemical and Food Biotechnology of the Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences.

Prof. Osthoff has done his research in protein chemistry, immuno-chemistry and enzymology at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) in Pretoria and post-doctoral research at the Bowman-Grey School of Medicine, North Carolina, USA. That was instrumental in establishing food chemistry at the university.
 
He is involved in chemical aspects of food, with a focus on dairy science and technology. He is also involved in the research of cheese processing as well as milk evolution and concentrated on milk evolution in his lecture. Knowledge of milk from dairy animals alone does not provide all the explanations of milk as food.
 
Some aspects he highlighted in his lecture were that milk is the first food to be utilised by young mammals and that it is custom-designed for each species. “However, mankind is an opportunist and has found ways of easy access to food by the practice of agriculture, where plants as well as animals were employed or rather exploited,” he said.
 
The cow is the best-known milk producer, but environmental conditions forced man to select other animals. In spite of breeding selection, cattle seem not to have adapted to the most extreme conditions such as high altitudes with sub-freezing temperatures, deserts and marshes.
 
Prof. Osthoff said the consumption of the milk as an adult is not natural; neither is the consumption of milk across species. This practice of mankind may often have consequences, when signs of malnutrition or diseases are noticed. Two common problems are an allergy to milk and lactose intolerance.
 
Allergies are normally the result of an immune response of the consumer to the foreign proteins found in the milk. In some cases it might help to switch from one milk source to another, such as switching from cow’s milk to goat’s milk.
 
Prof. Osthoff said lactose intolerance – the inability of adult humans to digest lactose, the milk sugar – is natural, as adults lose that ability to digest lactose. The symptoms of the condition are stomach cramps and diarrhoea. This problem is mainly found in the warmer climates of the world. This could be an indication of early passive development of dairy technology. In these regions milk could not be stored in its fresh form, but in a fermented form, in which case the lactose was pre-digested by micro-organisms, and the human population never adapted to digesting lactose in adulthood.
 
According to Prof. Osthoff, it is basically the lactose in milk that has spurred dairy technology. Its fermentation has resulted in the development of yoghurts and all the cheeses that we know. In turn, the intolerance to lactose has spurred a further technological solution: lactose-free milk is currently produced by pre-digestion of lactose with enzymes.
 
It was realised that the milks and products from different species differed in quality aspects such as keeping properties and taste. It was also realised that the nutritional properties differed as well as their effects on health. One example is the mentioned allergy against cow’s milk proteins, which may be solved by the consumption of goat’s milk. The nutritional benefits and technological processing of milk aroused an interest in more information, and it was realised that the information gained from human milk and that of the few domesticated species do not provide a complete explanation of the properties of milk as food. Of the 250 species of milk which have been studied, only the milk of humans and a few domesticated dairy animals has been studied in detail.

Media Release
15 March 2011
Issued by: Lacea Loader
Director: Strategic Communication
Tel: 051 401 2584
Cell: 083 645 2454
E-mail: news@ufs.ac.za

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