Little is known about the mating system and social organization of Guinea baboons. This study investigated whether Guinea baboons have a harem-based mating system similar to that of hamadryas and gelada baboons and whether one-male mating units also correspond to social units. Ten adult females in a captive multi-male multi-female group of Guinea baboons were focally observed 2 h per week for 12 weeks, and all observed copulations within the group were recorded. Some males copulated with a single female while others had harems of 2–4 females. All females copulated with a single male except 1 female that switched harems early in the study. The focal females had higher rates of social interaction with their harem members, especially their harem male, than with individuals outside the harem. Females appeared to be subordinate to the harem male but little or no physical aggression or herding behavior from the male was observed. Variation in female social interactions within the harem was not accounted for by their sexual interactions with the male or their genetic relatedness with the females. Females, however, appeared to maintain social relationships with their female relatives in other harems. Taken together, the results of this study show that both mating and affiliative interactions in Guinea baboons are concentrated within one-male units and that the social dynamics within and between these units share some similarities as well as differences with those of hamadryas and gelada baboons.

Background Country experiences of responding to the challenges of COVID-19 in 2020 highlighted how critical it is to have strong, in-country health security capacity. The UK government has invested in health security capacity development through various projects and agencies, including the UK Department of Health and Social Care, whose Global Health Security Programme provides funding to Public Health England (PHE) to implement health security support. This article describes the results and conclusions of the midterm evaluation, undertaken by Itad, of one of Public Health England’s global health projects: International Health Regulations Strengthening, which operates across six countries and works with the Africa Centres for Disease Control. It also highlights some of the key lessons learned for the benefit of other agencies moving into supporting national health security efforts. Results The Itad team found strong evidence that the IHR Project is well aligned with, and responding to, partners’ capability strengthening needs and that the three workstreams – systems coordination, workforce development and technical systems strengthening are implementing relevant and appropriate action to support national priorities. The IHR Project is also aligned with and complementary to other relevant UK development assistance although the Project could strengthen the strategic collaboration with WHO, US CDC and other UK government projects in countries. The Itad team also found that the IHR Project could be more effective if the technical assistance activities were accompanied by relevant materials and equipment while maintaining its supportive role. There was evidence of where technical assistance in the form of training and follow-up mentoring had led to improvements in practice and in IHR compliance, but these were not being systematically captured by the Project’s routine reporting. Conclusions There was good evidence that the project was doing the right things and aligning its work in the right way, with more limited evidence at the time of the midterm evaluation that it was making progress towards achieving the right results.

The data suggest that the Bodyzone programme has many of the elements of a successful adolescent healthcare service and deals with a range of health and social problems experienced by young people. However, its small scale of operation hampers the capacity to provide an effective service to all who might need to access it.

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Adolescent health service provision is an area of growing concern in the UK, where a number of studies have indicated that young people in their teenage years find accessing formal health services difficult. The Bodyzone Project in Oxfordshire is an innovative programme aimed at bringing health services into schools to ensure greater accessibility. This paper reports on the first phase of a programme of evaluation of the Bodyzone Project, involving a cross-sectional study. Methods used were both qualitative and quantitative to explore student knowledge, attitudes and behaviours with regards to health issues, health services and the Bodyzone service. The results of the study indicate that Bodyzone is a valued service for those who use it and by schools where it is based. However, there is also a clear indication of unmet health promotion and service need amongst students of those schools, which the current configuration of Bodyzone is not able to address fully.