Ethiopian Community Research Articles

Changed and Changing Gender and Family Roles and Domestic Violence in African Refugee Background Communities Post-Settlement in Perth, Australia

In this study, domestic violence (DV) in five African refugee background communities post-settlement in Perth, Australia, is investigated-specifically, the interrelationship between experiences of DV, and changed and changing gender and family roles and responsibilities. The participatory qualitative design utilized in-depth interviews with 54 members of the Somalian, Sierra Leonean, Ethiopian, Liberian and Sudanese Communities, and focus groups with 24 professionals who support them. Three key dimensions of this interrelationship are discussed: "male loss of the breadwinner role and status," "financial independence," and "mismatch between formal response and expectations." The importance of understanding experiences of DV within the context of cultural transition is highlighted here.

The Coverage of "Spousal Homicide" in the Ethiopian Community in the Israeli Daily Press

In the recent years, Ethiopian immigrants in Israel have been making headlines mainly in connection to domestic violence and murder. For the last decade, 30 Ethiopian women were murdered by their husbands. Iyengar (1991) distinguishes between two types of framing in news coverage. An episodic frame, which focuses mostly on the specific details of the events, and a thematic frame, which deals with the broader context within the events occur. In the case of the thematic frame, the source of the problem is found in the wider social circles, or the care-giving facilities, and they bear the responsibility for solving the problem as well. According Carter and Weaver (2003) the media’s presentation of violent stories constitutes means of social control, which encourages fear that leads to the search for authoritative and one-dimensional solutions. In order to examine the nature of the press coverage of Ethiopian husbands who murdered their wives, two of the most popular daily newspapers in Israel have been chosen. The sample includes all the articles regarding eight Ethiopian women murdered by their partners during the years 2007-2009. It seems as the press coverage of the murdered Ethiopian women makes use of both types of frames: episodic and thematic. Strengthening the image of the poor, criminal black immigrant plays a dual functional purpose, Illustrating, on the one hand, a clear line between the dangerous and the normal and, on the other hand, removing responsibility from the rest of the Israeli society.

A Qualitative Study Exploring Barriers Related to Use of Footwear in Rural Highland Ethiopia: Implications for Neglected Tropical Disease Control

BackgroundThe role of footwear in protection against a range of Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs) is gaining increasing attention. Better understanding of the behaviors that influence use of footwear will lead to improved ability to measure shoe use and will be important for those implementing footwear programs.Methodology/Principal FindingsUsing the PRECEDE-PROCEED model we assessed social, behavioral, environmental, educational and ecological needs influencing whether and when children wear shoes in a rural highland Ethiopian community endemic for podoconiosis. Information was gathered from 242 respondents using focus groups, semi-structured interviews and extended case studies. Shoe-wearing norms were said to be changing, with going barefoot increasingly seen as ‘shameful’. Shoes were thought to confer dignity as well as protection against injury and cold. However, many practical and social barriers prevented the desire to wear shoes from being translated into practice. Limited financial resources meant that people were neither able to purchase more than one pair of shoes to ensure their longevity nor afford shoes of the preferred quality. As a result of this limited access, shoes were typically preserved for special occasions and might not be provided for children until they reached a certain age. While some barriers (for example fit of shoe and fear of labeling through use of a certain type of shoe) may be applicable only to certain diseases, underlying structural level barriers related to poverty (for example price, quality, unsuitability for daily activities and low risk perception) are likely to be relevant to a range of NTDs.Conclusions/SignificanceUsing well established conceptual models of health behavior adoption, we identified several barriers to shoe wearing that are amenable to intervention and which we anticipate will be of benefit to those considering NTD prevention through shoe distribution.

Perceptions of mental illness in Ethiopia: a profile of attitudes, beliefs and practices among community members, healthcare workers and traditional healers

This study explores perceptions of mental illness in a sample of Ethiopian community members, healthcare workers and traditional healers. Specifically, the attitudes, beliefs and practices associated with the symptoms, causes and treatment of mental illness were investigated. A total of 115 participants were interviewed using a semi-structured questionnaire to explore their perceptions of depression, anxiety and psychosis. Qualitative analysis of the interview responses indicated a range of beliefs about the recognition and etiology of mental illness. Nine themes were identified in response to the questions how do you identify and what causes mental illness: Psychocultural appropriateness, Religious/spiritual, Social difficulty, Behavioral disturbance, Cognitive-emotional impairment, Disaster and economic deprivation, Adaptive functioning, Substance abuse and Physical/medical. The most frequent response for how to identify depression and anxiety was negative emotions, while the most frequent answer for re...

Ovid in the Age of Cervantes ed. by Frederick de Armas (review)

Reviewed by: Ovid in the Age of Cervantes ed. by Frederick de Armas Ignacio López Alemany Ovid in the Age of Cervantes. Ed. Frederick de Armas. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2010. 291 pp. This book is the first comprehensive study of Ovid's influence during early modern Spain since Rudolph Schevill's Ovid and the Renascence in Spain (1913). This time, fifteen specialists have contributed to a volume with a great variety of perspectives and surprising cohesiveness. The opening pages of the book are used by the editor to explain the unusual label employed to designate the span of time these studies cover. De Armas suggests that the early modern, or Spanish Golden Age, could be referred to as "the age of Cervantes" because this writer "has become a symbol of change, experimentation, and breaking with the past" (xi). Although this is a very problematic argument to be broadly accepted, it serves as the point of departure for this book: the consideration of Ovid and Cervantes as literary banners of their times and the celebration of the latter as legitimate heir of the former. The volume is divided into four parts. The first section, entitled "Alternatives, diagnoses, and translations" begins with an essay about the medical and satirical writings of the Middle Ages in which Ovid's Remedia amoris is considered a reliable diagnostic source for curing the lovesick. The following chapters of this section study early modern approaches to Metamorphosis and its canonical status as an opportunity for self-fashioning through the examination the Classical heritage, taking into account the new role of science and current social issues. Finally, a lesser known text, Fasti, is studied for its productivity in didactic and humanistic writing of the time. Part two of this collection, "Ovid and Cervantes," comprises three chapters that separately explore not so evident echoes reminiscent of Ovid's Metamorphosis in the episode of the fulling hammers (batanes), the interpolated tale of "El curioso impertinente," as well as in some of the characters' transformations throughout the novel. Although the chapters constitute a well tightened triad, the reader will miss a study of other Cervantine works with rich presence of Ovidian themes such as La Galatea or Los trabajos de Persiles y Sigismunda. Part three, "Poetic Fables," is an interesting read, but there is a feeling of disconnect between some of Ovid's Metamorphosis tales that are referenced [End Page 97] and the chapters' interpretations of texts by Garcilaso de la Vega, Lope de Vega, and Cristóbal de Castillejo. The final essay is a close reading of early modern texts that reflect the cultural tensions in scientific and moral discourse resulting from interpretations of Ovid's tale of "Hermaphroditus," and the issue of the "third sex." The final part, "Ovidian Fame," deals with reelaboration of myths for the purpose of self-fashioning and constructing poetic fame. This section studies the case of poets, Garcilaso de la Vega (Third Ecglogue) and Jorge de Montemayor (La Diana), who present themselves as orphic voices. Lope de Vega (El amor enamorado) and Calderón de la Barca (El laurel de Apolo) also use the Ovidian tale of Apollo and Dafne to praise themselves and to give cautionary advice to the king in their respective court plays. Another chapter discusses the argument that Gabriel Téllez, known to the stage as Tirso de Molina, composed his miscellaneous work, Deleitar aprovechando, as a public repudiation of Ovidian traditions that he had previously followed. The last chapter of this book is a fascinating study on Juan de Miramontes Zuázola's Armas antárticas (1608-9). Here, a former African slave claims Apollo and Andromeda as ancestors of his nation, which serves to whiten his past by linking it to Classical Antiquity. In this way, Miramontes makes the Ethiopian community a worthy opponent for the Spaniards by elevating their victory through a connection to the Ancient world, which also gives the story a classical heritage and noble literary genealogy. In summary, the reader should know that this book is a stimulating collection of studies about the presence of Ovidian themes in "the age of Cervantes," and although it does not provide a comprehensive study...

A Bilingual Newspaper: An Educational Tool to Empower the Family in the Ethiopian Community as a Basis for its Assimilation in Israeli Society

The current paper analyzes unique educational texts written of bi-lingual called Nugget News. The analysis of the qualitative interpretive texts has helped to identify power and suppression foci influencing or forming the identity of the members of Ethiopian immigrant community inside the hegemonic environment of the Hebrew-speaking Israeli community. We refer to the concept of multiaccentuality (Wolloshinov, 1973), which defined within social contexts and it symbolizes the system of representations of signs amongst various classes. Within the framework of the social process to which the term is directed the social-cultural group chooses to attribute various accents from its cultural autonomic experience to a given sign. As a result, therefore, a single sign can be interpreted in various ways within the social-cultural classes and multiaccentuality attributed to it by various social groups expresses it as being “a class struggle arena”. The newspaper reflects the weakness of visibility while reality emphasizes the visibility.

Pelvic floor disorders among women in Dabat district, northwest Ethiopia: a pilot study

Pelvic floor disorders affect many women in high-income countries. Since little is known about such disorders in Africa, this study aimed at assessing the prevalence and risk factors in an Ethiopian community. We also assessed the validity of a prolapse questionnaire. A community-based cross-sectional study was conducted among 395 women, recruited by a systematic random sampling technique. Women were interviewed about symptoms of urinary incontinence, faecal incontinence and pelvic organ prolapse by female nurses. Additionally, pelvic examinations were performed in 294 (74.2%) participants to assess anatomical prolapse using the simplified Pelvic Organ Prolapse Quantification staging system. Descriptive statistics and logistic regression analyses were employed. The median age of participants was 35.0 years. Thirty-one women reported urinary incontinence (7.8%), 25 (6.3%) symptomatic pelvic organ prolapse and 2 (0.5%) faecal incontinence. Anatomical pelvic organ prolapse stage II-IV was detected in 162 (55.1%) of women who underwent pelvic examination. The questionnaire for prolapse assessment had poor validity (38.3% sensitivity and 95.4% specificity) even in cases of clinically relevant prolapse (stage III or IV). After adjustment, carrying heavy objects for 5 or more hours a day, history of prolonged labour and highland rural residence were associated with anatomical pelvic organ prolapse. Self-reported incontinence seems low in northwest Ethiopia. The prevalence of symptomatic prolapse was low despite a high prevalence of prolapse signs. Notably, heavy carrying and prolonged labour increased the risk of anatomical prolapse stage II-IV. The methods of assessing pelvic floor disorders in a low-income context need further development.

Implications of Ethiopia’s International Trade Negotiations and the Private Sector – An Overarching View

Ethiopia is currently involved in a number of international trade negotiations which will have a far-reaching impact on the Ethiopian economy. Negotiations take place both at the multilateral level (Ethiopia’s accession to the World Trade Organisation) and inter-regionally (Economic Partnership Agreement with the European Union). Regionally, studies are under way on the establishment of economic integration among members of the Inter-Governmental Authority for Development and the Sana’a Forum for Co-operation. Finally, a decision will have to be taken regarding Ethiopia’s potential joining the Common Market of Eastern and Southern Africa’s (COMESA) Free Trade Area – which might be superseded by a Tripartite FTA combining the 26 members of COMESA, the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and the East African Community (EAC).Against this background, the paper pursues a number of objectives. First, it assesses the likely implications for the Ethiopian economy of the ongoing and planned international trade negotiations in which Ethiopia is involved. Second, the paper aims at helping develop a coherent strategy for all of Ethiopia’s current and international trade negotiations. Third, it raises awareness among the Ethiopian business community about the various international trade negotiations in which Ethiopia is involved and thus contributes to devising a positive and proactive agenda by forging consensus and commitment among private sector representatives and building a strategic partnership between public and private sector leaders in order to leverage regional and multilateral negotiations.

The Association of Beliefs About Heredity with Preventive and Interpersonal Behaviors in Communities Affected by Podoconiosis in Rural Ethiopia

Little is known about how beliefs about heredity as a cause of health conditions might influence preventive and interpersonal behaviors among those individuals with low genetic and health literacy. We explored causal beliefs about podoconiosis, a neglected tropical disease (NTD) endemic in Ethiopia. Podoconiosis clusters in families but can be prevented if individuals at genetically high risk wear shoes consistently. Adults (N = 242) from four rural Ethiopian communities participated in qualitative assessments of beliefs about the causes of podoconiosis. Heredity was commonly mentioned, with heredity being perceived as (1) the sole cause of podoconiosis, (2) not a causal factor, or (3) one of multiple causes. These beliefs influenced the perceived controllability of podoconiosis and in turn, whether individuals endorsed preventive and interpersonal stigmatizing behaviors. Culturally informed education programs that increase the perceived controllability of stigmatized hereditary health conditions like podoconiosis have promise for increasing preventive behaviors and reducing interpersonal stigma.

The association between travel time to health facilities and childhood vaccine coverage in rural Ethiopia. A community based cross sectional study

BackgroundFew studies have examined associations between access to health care and childhood vaccine coverage in remote communities that lack motorised transport. This study assessed whether travel time to health facilities was associated with childhood vaccine coverage in a remote area of Ethiopia.MethodsThis was a cross-sectional study using data from 775 children aged 12–59 months who participated in a household survey between January –July 2010 in Dabat district, north-western Ethiopia. 208 households were randomly selected from each kebele. All children in a household were eligible for inclusion if they were aged between 12–59 months at the time of data collection. Travel time to vaccine providers was collected using a geographical information system (GIS). The primary outcome was the percentage of children in the study population who were vaccinated with the third infant Pentavalent vaccine ([Diphtheria, Tetanus,-Pertussis Hepatitis B, Haemophilus influenza type b] Penta3) in the five years before the survey. We also assessed effects on BCG, Penta1, Penta2 and Measles vaccines. Analysis was conducted using Poisson regression models with robust standard error estimation and the Wald test.ResultsMissing vaccination data ranged from 4.6% (36/775) for BCG to 16.4% (127/775) for Penta3 vaccine. In children with complete vaccination records, BCG vaccine had the highest coverage (97.3% [719/739]), Penta3 coverage was (92.9% [602/648]) and Measles vaccine had the lowest coverage (81.7% [564/690]). Children living ≥60mins from a health post were significantly less likely (adjRR = 0.85 [0.79-0.92] p value < =0.001) to receive Penta3 vaccine compared to children living <30mins from a health post. This effect was not modified by household wealth (p value = 0.240). Travel time also had a highly significant association with BCG (adjRR = 0.95 [0.93-0.98] p value =0.002) and Measles (adjRR = 0.88 [0.79-0.97] p value =0.027) vaccine coverage.ConclusionsTravel time to vaccine providers in health posts appeared to be a barrier to the delivery of infant vaccines in this remote Ethiopian community. New vaccine delivery strategies are needed for the hardest to reach children in the African region.

HIV/AIDS stigma-associated attitudes in a rural Ethiopian community: characteristics, correlation with HIV knowledge and other factors, and implications for community intervention

BackgroundWhether scale-up of HIV prevention and care will reduce negative attitudes and discriminatory practices towards persons living with HIV/AIDS (PLWH) is uncertain. An HIV knowledge and attitude survey was conducted in a rural Ethiopian community where HIV prevention and treatment was being rapidly scaled up. Data were analyzed to identify prevalence of and factors associated with stigma-associated attitudes towards PLWH.MethodsWe surveyed 561 adults from 250 randomly selected households in the rural town of Arba Minch and surrounding villages about positive or negative attitudes towards PLWH, as well as demographic characteristics, and knowledge about HIV transmission and treatment.ResultsEighty percent of respondents agreed with ≥ 1 negative statements indicating blame or shame towards PLWH and 41% agreed with ≥ 1 negative statements associated with distancing themselves from PLWH. However, only 14% expressed negative responses about whether PLWH should receive support from their communities. In multivariate analysis, a greater number of negative attitudes towards PLWH was significantly (p < 0.05) associated with: female gender (Odds Ratio [OR] = 1.51), living in a rural village (vs. town neighborhood) (OR = 3.44), not knowing PLWH can appear healthy (OR = 1.78), lack of knowledge about perinatal transmission (OR = 1.49), lack of knowledge about how HIV is not transmitted (e.g. casual contact) (OR = 2.05), lack of knowledge about HIV treatment (OR = 1.80), and not personally knowing a PLWH (OR = 1.41).ConclusionsIn a rural Ethiopian setting in which rapid scale-up of HIV treatment occurred, many respondents still characterized HIV as associated with shame or blame, or indicated PLWH would be isolated or discriminated against. HIV stigma can hamper both prevention and treatment programs. We identified multiple issues which, if addressed, can help promote a more positive cycle in which PLWH are appreciated as members of one’s own community who are affirmatively interacted with and supported. Stigma reduction programs should address knowledge gaps such as fears of casual contact contagion, and lack of awareness of medical interventions to help prevent HIV disease, as well as building upon community-based attitudes of the importance of supporting and showing compassion for PLWH.

Is the wait‐for‐patient‐to‐come approach suitable for African newcomers to Alberta, Canada?

A qualitative study was conducted to identify psychosocial barriers to providing and obtaining preventive dental care for preschool children among African recent immigrants. Seven focus groups were conducted with 48 mothers of 3- to 5-year-old children from Ethiopian, Eritrean, and Somali communities in Edmonton. Participants had lived in Canada for 5years or less. Three debriefing interviews were conducted with the community health workers who facilitated the focus groups in participants' first languages. Data analysis consisted of assigning codes, grouping codes into existing or new categories of barriers, grouping identified categories into domains, and organizing categories and domains around a general perspective of psychosocial barriers to prevention of caries. Barriers to prevention of early childhood caries (ECC) were associated with home-based prevention, early detection, and access to professional care. Barriers to parental prevention were related to health beliefs, knowledge, oral health approach, and skills. Barriers to early detection included perceived role of caregivers and dentists, perceived identity of ECC, ways of detecting cavities, and parental self-efficacy. Access barriers were related to parental knowledge of preventive services, attitudes toward dentists and dental services, English skills, and external constraints concerned dental insurance, social support, time, and transportation. Preventive interventions should be aimed at assisting primary caregivers with providing and obtaining adequate dental care for their children through enhancing oral health literacy, developing new set of oral health-related skills, reducing environmental constraints, and strengthening their intention of obtaining professional preventive dental services.

Suicidal Ideation and Alcohol Use Among Ethiopian Adolescents in Israel

Recent figures point to alarming rates of suicidal tendencies and risk behaviors among Ethiopian adolescents (first and second generation) in Israel. This study tries to understand this phenomenon through an examination of the relationship between ethnic identity (Israeli and Ethiopian) and parental support with suicidal ideation and alcohol use. Two hundred adolescents aged 15–18 years from the Ethiopian community in Israel completed questionnaires examining the degree to which they felt a sense of (positive) Israeli and Ethiopian identity and parental support as well as suicidal ideation, drinking behavior, and depression. Results showed significant correlations between both Israeli and Ethiopian identities and suicidal ideation and alcohol use and a significant relationship between suicidal ideation and parental support. Regression analysis highlighted the pivotal role of a strong and positive heritage (Ethiopian) identity in lower levels of suicidal ideation and alcohol use. Results suggest the important role of ethnic identity for well-being among immigrant and minority youth, in particular in the ability of minority youth to consolidate a coherent ethnic identity incorporating a positive connection to their heritage culture as providing a protective role against suicidal tendencies and risk behaviors.

Chlamydial infection during trachoma monitoring: are the most difficult‐to‐reach children more likely to be infected?

During mass antibiotic distributions for trachoma, certain individuals are difficult to locate and go untreated. These untreated individuals may serve as a source of community reinfection. The importance of this difficult-to-locate, untreated population is unclear. We sought to determine whether individuals who are difficult to locate were more likely to be infected with ocular chlamydia than those who were easier to locate. We monitored 12 Ethiopian communities 1 year after a third annual mass azithromycin treatment for trachoma. Conjunctival swabbing for chlamydial RNA was performed in a random sample of children from each community. If insufficient numbers of children were enrolled on the first monitoring day, we returned on subsequent days. Of the 12 communities, 10 required more than one monitoring day. On average, 16.1% (95% CI 7.9-30.0) of children were enrolled after the initial day. Evidence of chlamydia was found in 7.1% (95% CI 2.7-17.4) of 0- to 9-year-old children. No ocular swabs collected after the initial day were positive for chlamydial RNA. Children examined after the initial monitoring day were significantly less likely to have ocular chlamydial infection than children seen on the initial day; Mantel-Haenszel common OR = 0 (95% CI 0-0.77). In a setting of repeated annual mass azithromycin treatments, after approximately 80% of individuals have been located in a community, extra efforts to find absent individuals may not yield significantly more cases of ocular chlamydia.

SP3-6 Adolescent sexual behaviour and HIV/AIDS in Ethiopia: epidemiological perspectives

IntroductionAdolescents will be the influential force behind economic prosperity in the future of Ethiopia. Ethiopian adolescent communities today face many health-related challenges, and their lives vary considerably from those of...

Journalists or activists? Self-identity in the Ethiopian diaspora online community

This study investigates the role of the diaspora online media as stakeholders in the transnational Ethiopian media landscape. Through content analysis of selected websites and interviews with editors, the research discusses how the sites relate to recognized journalistic ideals and how the editors view themselves in regard to journalistic professionalism. It is argued that the journalistic ideals of the diaspora media must be understood towards the particular political conditions in homeland Ethiopia. Highly politicized, the diaspora websites display a marked critical attitude towards the Ethiopian government through an activist journalism approach. The editors differ slightly among themselves in the perception of whether activist journalism is in conflict with ideal-type professional norms, but they justify the practice either because of the less than ideal conditions back home or because they maintain that the combination of activism and professionalism is a forward-looking journalism ideology. The online initiatives of the Ethiopian diaspora are found to prolong media contestations in the homeland as well as reinforcing an ideal-type professional journalism paradigm.

Community understandings of childhood transitions in Ethiopia: different for girls?

The paper explores the perspectives of caregivers and other adults on the nature and timing of childhood transitions, elicited through group discussions in five Ethiopian communities, as reflective of the community norms that shape childhood transitions. The paper uses data from Young Lives, a longitudinal study of children growing up in poverty, to investigate the transitions made by girls from childhood to the onset of puberty. It argues that these transitions are rarely linear, singular, or focused on ‘learning’, but instead multiple and often contradictory. While girls are said to be constrained by lack of opportunities, the main constraint to successful transitions in the communities discussed in the paper is having too many potentially contradictory opportunities, too soon.

Vital Information at Your Fingertips: The Ethiopian Yellow Pages as a Cultural Document

In the last decade of the twentieth century, Yellow Pages, the wellknown business directories that effectively advertise services in fairly standardized formats, have been published by entrepreneurs for various ethnic communities, including Ethiopians. This essay reads the Ethiopian Yellow Pages (EYP), published for the Washington, DC, area, as a cultural document, interpreting it as a text in which issues of identity and community are represented by and for members of the Ethiopian community. The essay provides a detailed overview of the EYP in its thirteenth edition, covering the year 2006/2007, surveying its structure; its target area; and the wide array of services, venues, and institutions that advertise in its pages. The discussion concludes that the EYP is much more than an instrument for providing information and access to services: It both captures the mundane aspects of life in America and highlights the specific features of an ethnically distinct immigrant population’s journey of cultural creativity, which reverberates in both their new and their old homelands. (January 2009)

Sociocultural practices in Ethiopia: association with onset and persistence of postnatal common mental disorders

BackgroundTraditional perinatal practices may protect against postnatal common mental disorders (CMD) in non-Western societies.AimsTo evaluate the association between perinatal practices and postnatal CMD in rural Ethiopia.MethodA population-based sample of 1065 women was followed up from pregnancy until 2 months postpartum. Qualitative investigation informed the development of scales measuring attitudes towards and adherence to perinatal practices. Postnatal CMD was measured using the Self-Reporting Questionnaire.ResultsEndorsement of sociocultural perinatal practices was associated with lower odds of antenatal CMD persisting into the postnatal period (adjusted odds ratio (OR) = 0.66, 95% CI 0.45–0.95). Women who endorsed protective and celebratory perinatal practices but were unable to complete them had increased odds of incident (adjusted OR = 7.26, 95% CI 1.38–38.04) and persistent postnatal CMD (adjusted OR = 2.16, 95% CI 1.11–4.23) respectively.ConclusionsThere is evidence for an independent role of sociocultural practices in maintaining perinatal mental health in this Ethiopian community.

Risk factors associated with prevalence of tuberculosis-like lesions and associated mycobacteria in cattle slaughtered at public and export abattoirs in Ethiopia

This study was aimed at investigating risk factors associated with prevalence of tuberculosis (TB)-like lesions and associated mycobacteria in Ethiopian cattle slaughtered. The study was carried out during 2006-2007 in five selected municipal and export abattoirs. Methods of investigation involved detailed necropsy examination of carcasses and isolation of mycobacteria from pathologic tissue specimens. Factors of animal and environment origin were recorded and examined as explanatory variables in relation to the presence or absence of TB-like lesions and the presence of viable mycobacteria. Multivariable logistic regression analysis was used to identify risk factors associated with prevalence of TB-like lesions and mycobacteria. Out of 3,322 carcasses inspected, 10.2% (95% confidence interval (CI) [9.2-11.3]) and 3.2% (95% CI [2.6-3.8]) were positive, respectively, based on necropsy and bacteriologic examinations. The highest and lowest lesion prevalence was recorded in Adama (24.7%) and Yabello (4.2%), respectively. Multivariable logistic regression analysis identified age, breed, abattoir location, geographic origin and management system as being risk factors for prevalence of TB-like lesions and occurrence of viable mycobacteria in Ethiopian cattle. The study demonstrated mycobacterial infection as important infectious disease of Ethiopian cattle. The reported confirmed cases of the disease in different management and geographic settings in Ethiopia disproved the earlier held opinion of its occurrence as a low sporadic profile. In view of a dietary proclivity of Ethiopian communities (milk and meat are predominantly consumed raw) and lifestyle (close contact of people with animals), the risk of bovine tuberculosis as a public health threat is eminent.