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Front Oncol 2020 15;10:606400. Epub 2021 Feb 15.

Department of Translational Genomics, Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, United States.

Cancer is the second leading cause of death globally and is projected to overtake infectious disease as the leading cause of mortality in Africa within the next two decades. Cancer is a group of genomic diseases that presents with intra- and inter-population unique phenotypes, with Black populations having the burden of morbidity and mortality for most types. At large, the prevention and treatment of cancers have been propelled by the understanding of the genetic make-up of the disease of mostly non-African populations. Read More

Am J Phys Anthropol 2021 Feb 21. Epub 2021 Feb 21.

Institute of Human Origins, School of Human Evolution and Social Change, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona, USA.

Objectives: The Late Pleistocene and early Holocene in eastern Africa are associated with complex evolutionary and demographic processes that contributed to the population variability observed in the region today. However, there are relatively few human skeletal remains from this time period. Here we describe six individuals from the Kisese II rockshelter in Tanzania that were excavated in 1956, present a radiocarbon date for one of the individuals, and compare craniodental morphological diversity among eastern African populations. Read More

J Hum Evol 2021 Mar 8;152:102943. Epub 2021 Feb 8.

Department of Archaeology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, CB2 3QG, UK; Department of Anthropology, University of Western Ontario, London, ON, N6A 5C2, UK; Department of Archaeology, Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, Kahlaische Str. 10, Jena, 07745, Germany.

Modern humans originated between 300 and 200 ka in structured populations throughout Africa, characterized by regional interaction and diversity. Acknowledgment of this complex Pleistocene population structure raises new questions about the emergence of phenotypic diversity. Holocene Southern African Later Stone Age (LSA) skeletons and descendant Khoe-San peoples have small adult body sizes that may reflect long-term adaptation to the Cape environment. Read More

Int J Environ Res Public Health 2021 01 21;18(3). Epub 2021 Jan 21.

African Vision Research Institute (AVRI), Discipline of Optometry, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Westville Campus, Durban 3629, South Africa.

Mental health and emotional responses to the effects of COVID-19 lockdown in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) are of serious public health concern and may negatively affect the mental health status of people. Hence, this study assessed the prevalence of mental health symptoms as well as emotional reactions among sub-Saharan Africans (SSAs) and associated factors among SSAs during the COVID-19 lockdown period. This was a web-based cross-sectional study on mental health and emotional features from 2005 respondents in seven SSA countries. Read More

Int J Environ Res Public Health 2020 12 23;18(1). Epub 2020 Dec 23.

School of Arts and Social Science, Southern Cross University, Gold Coast, QLD 4225, Australia.

As nationalist ideologies intensify in Australia, so do the experiences of 'everyday racism' and exclusion for Black African immigrants. In this article, we utilize critical theories and engage with colonial histories to contextualize Afrodiasporic experiences in Australia, arguing that the conditional acceptance of Black bodies within Australian spaces is contingent upon the status quo of the white hegemony. The tropes and discourses that render the bodies of Black African migrants simultaneously invisible and hyper-visible indicate that immigration is not only a movement of bodies, but also a phenomenon solidly tied to global inequality, power, and the abjection of blackness. Read More