BackgroundInformation on the global risk factors of children mortality is crucial to guide global efforts to improve survival. Corruption has been previously shown to significantly impact on child mortality. However no recent quantification of its current impact is available.MethodsThe impact of corruption was assessed through crude Pearson's correlation, univariate and multivariate linear models coupling national under-five mortality rates in 2008 to the national “perceived level of corruption” (CPI) and a large set of adjustment variables measured during the same period.FindingsThe final multivariable model (adjusted R2 = 0.89) included the following significant variables: percentage of people with improved sanitation (p.value<0.001), logarithm of total health expenditure (p.value = 0.006), Corruption Perception Index (p.value<0.001), presence of an arid climate on the national territory (p = 0.006), and the dependency ratio (p.value<0.001). A decrease in CPI of one point (i.e. a more important perceived corruption) was associated with an increase in the log of national under-five mortality rate of 0.0644. According to this result, it could be roughly hypothesized that more than 140000 annual children deaths could be indirectly attributed to corruption.InterpretationsGlobal response to children mortality must involve a necessary increase in funds available to develop water and sanitation access and purchase new methods for prevention, management, and treatment of major diseases drawing the global pattern of children deaths. However without paying regard to the anti-corruption mechanisms needed to ensure their proper use, it will also provide further opportunity for corruption. Policies and interventions supported by governments and donors must integrate initiatives that recognise how they are inter-related.

The French overseas territories in the Americas are the French territories most affected by HIV. Crack cocaine users are particularly impacted. The objective of this study was to describe sexual risk behaviors and inconsistent condom use among crack cocaine users. A total of 640 crack cocaine users were interviewed. The sampling method was non-probabilistic. An anonymous standardized questionnaire of 110 questions was used. Over a third of persons did not use condoms systematically with casual sex partners (36.2%) or commercial sex partners (32.3%), and 64% did not use condoms systematically with regular sex partners. In a context of multiple sexual partnerships, frequent forced sex, and insufficient HIV testing, the lack of systematic condom use may favor the spread of HIV. Different predictive factors of inconsistent condom use were identified, depending on the type of partner, with a log binomial regression. However, among the predictor variables identified, two predictive factors frequently occur among the different type of sex partners: high perceived risk of HIV and self-perceived capacity to persuade a sex partner to use condom. These results pointed towards interventions improving access to rights and raising perceived self-efficacy.

In Cayenne, French Guiana, 80% of HIV-positive patients followed at the hospital are migrants. Behavioural information is crucial for optimising HIV testing for this vulnerable group. Predictors of ignorance of the existence of free voluntary counselling and testing (VCT) centre and willingness to get tested were investigated in 2006 among 398 migrants from Haiti, Guyana, Suriname and Brazil using a structured questionnaire. Only 27% of migrants knew simultaneously about the existence of free VCT, its localisation and its operating hours. Factors associated with ignorance of the existence of free VCT centre were birthplace in Haiti, being in French Guiana for less than three years, not thinking one's birth country as strongly affected by HIV and not thinking to be personally at risk for HIV. Factors independently associated with willingness to get tested were thinking to be at risk for HIV, birthplace in Brazil and Haiti, having a high-integration level and fear of suffering if HIV test was positive. In order to improve testing among migrants, the accessibility of testing facilities and the knowledge of their whereabouts and operating hours must be improved to promote the desired behaviour among the majority of migrants which is often willing to do the test.

Background: In French Guiana, restrictions to control the spread of SARS-CoV-2 were put in place between March 2020 and March 2022. In vulnerable urban neighborhoods, during this period, requests for food assistance increased and fear of hunger overtook fear of being affected by COVID-19. Objective: The objective of this survey was to describe food security during the COVID-19 pandemic in French Guiana and to study the relationship between the socioeconomic conditions of the study households and household hunger. Methods: A multicenter survey was therefore conducted in mobile clinics and fixed structures providing care to at-risk urban populations. In a face-to-face interview, a community health worker asked participants questions about the sociodemographic and economic profile of the household, and about household food security (food consumption score, coping strategies in the face of food shortages, and household hunger index). Two hundred and seventy-seven households were recruited in February 2021. Results: According to the household hunger scale, 42.6% of households experienced moderate hunger and 23.8% of households experienced severe hunger in the month preceding the survey. Lack of residence permit, lack of social support, water insecurity, small housing, and lack of access to an urban garden were determinants related to the risk of household hunger. Conclusions: Food insecurity have affected a large majority of the households in this survey, and the immediate consequences for children’s health were already apparent. These results draw attention to a neglected health problem in a socioeconomically vulnerable population during the COVID-19 pandemic.