- Mumbai, Maharashtra, India
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<p>The age groups used to estimate downward and upward shift of women from eligible age group (15–49) for DLHS-3 survey.</p
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Women’s empowerment is fundamental for realizing unalienable human rights and is vital to sustainable development outcomes. In India, the SWABHIMAAN intervention program was an integrated multi-sectoral strategy to improve girls’ and... more
Women’s empowerment is fundamental for realizing unalienable human rights and is vital to sustainable development outcomes. In India, the SWABHIMAAN intervention program was an integrated multi-sectoral strategy to improve girls’ and women’s nutrition before conception, during pregnancy, and after childbirth. This study assesses the role of self-help-group (SHGs) in improving the effectiveness of community health interventions and its impact on their self-empowerment. Qualitative data gathered through in-depth interviews (IDI) with community-based SHG members involved as Nutrition Friend (Poshan Sakhi-PS) in the SWABHIMAAN program in 2018 was used for analysis. Informed consent procedures were followed, and only those who voluntarily consented to the interview were interviewed. Twenty-five IDIs of purposively selected PSs in three states (Bihar, n = 9; Chhattisgarh, n = 8; and Odisha, n = 8) were analyzed thematically, according to Braun & Clarke (2006). NVivo 12 software was used f...
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The outbreak of novel coronavirus disease of 2019 (COVID-19) has a wider geographical spread than other previous viruses such as Ebola and H1N1 This study aims to provide the estimates of the basic reproduction rate (R0) and case fatality... more
The outbreak of novel coronavirus disease of 2019 (COVID-19) has a wider geographical spread than other previous viruses such as Ebola and H1N1 This study aims to provide the estimates of the basic reproduction rate (R0) and case fatality rate (CFR), which applies to a generalized population The systematic review helped to retrieve the published estimates of reproduction rate and case fatality rate in peer-reviewed articles from the PubMed MEDLINE database with defined inclusion and exclusion criteria in the period 15 December 2019 to 3 May 2020 A meta-analysis, with the inverse variance method, fixed- and random-effects model and the Forest plot, was performed to estimate the mean effect size or mean value of the basic reproduction rate and case fatality rate We estimated the robust estimate of R0 at 3 02 (2 42-3 68) persons and the robust estimate of CFR at 2 56 (2 06-3 05) percent after accounting for heterogeneity among studies using the random-effects model We found that one person is likely to infect two to three persons in the absence of any control measures, and around three percent of the population are at the risk of death within one-and-a-half months from the onset of disease COVID-19 in a generalized population
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Tobacco use, particularly cigarette smoking, continues to be the leading preventable cause of cancer. Moreover, smoking by cancer patients is detrimental to their treatment outcomes and prognosis. Therefore, tobacco control remains a key... more
Tobacco use, particularly cigarette smoking, continues to be the leading preventable cause of cancer. Moreover, smoking by cancer patients is detrimental to their treatment outcomes and prognosis. Therefore, tobacco control remains a key element of comprehensive cancer prevention and control. The tobacco landscape continues to evolve, with demographic shifts in tobacco use exacerbating existing health disparities, while the emergence of electronic cigarettes presents both opportunities and challenges. This chapter summarizes these ongoing changes and then provides an overview of both pharmacological and behavioral smoking cessation strategies. With respect to cancer patients, as the benefits of smoking cessation have been identified, there have been accumulating recommendations and guidelines for the systematic assessment and treatment of tobacco use.
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... Mukerjee, Mr. MSR Singh, Mrs. R. Usha, Dr. S. Pujari, Ms. Arundhati, Ms. Rupa, Ms. Manju, Ms. Dipiti, Ms. Sarita Pawar and ... Brahmins at the top followed by Warriors (marital community), Vaishyas (trading community) and Shudras (the... more
... Mukerjee, Mr. MSR Singh, Mrs. R. Usha, Dr. S. Pujari, Ms. Arundhati, Ms. Rupa, Ms. Manju, Ms. Dipiti, Ms. Sarita Pawar and ... Brahmins at the top followed by Warriors (marital community), Vaishyas (trading community) and Shudras (the untouchable) at the bottom (Bhagat, 2006). ...
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This study aimed to identify the determinants of nutritional status of children in India with a special focus on dietary diversity at the state level. Household-level consumption data from three rounds of the Consumer Expenditure Survey... more
This study aimed to identify the determinants of nutritional status of children in India with a special focus on dietary diversity at the state level. Household-level consumption data from three rounds of the Consumer Expenditure Survey of the National Sample Survey Organization (1993-2012) were used. Information on the nutritional status of children was taken from the National Family Health Survey (2005-06). Dietary diversity indices were constructed at the state level to examine diversity in quantity of food consumed and food expenditure. Multilevel regression analysis was applied to examine the association of state-level dietary diversity and other socioeconomic factors with the nutritional status of children. It was observed that significant variation in childhood stunting, wasting and underweight could be explained by community- and state-level factors. The results indicate that dietary diversity has increased in India over time, and that dietary diversity at the state level is significantly associated with the nutritional status of children. Moreover, percentage of households with a regular salaried income in a state, percentage of educated mothers and mothers receiving antenatal care in a community are important factors for improving the nutritional status of children. Diversity in complementary child feeding is another significant determinant of nutritional status of children. The study thus concludes that increasing dietary diversity at the state level is an effective measure to reduce childhood malnutrition in India.
Research Interests: Demography, Environmental Health, Dietary Diversity, Medicine, India, and 15 moreMalnutrition, Humans, Child, Female, Male, Infant, Nutritional Status, Feeding Behavior, Family Health, Adult, Educational Status, Health surveys, Cross Sectional Studies, Child preschool, and Infant nutritional physiological phenomena
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<p>Classification of the states based on degree of age displacement for women in the DLHS-3 survey.</p
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1<p>lower boundary distortion.</p>2<p>upper boundary distortion.</p
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<p>Number and Time of visit to collect information from the household during the DLHS-3 survey.</p
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<p>State wise pattern of age reporting in DLHS-2 measured by Whipple's Index.</p
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Introduction COVID-19 has disrupted maternal and child health services. Community Health Workers (CHWs) supported the women by visiting pregnant women's homes and providing the MCH services as required. This study attempts to... more
Introduction COVID-19 has disrupted maternal and child health services. Community Health Workers (CHWs) supported the women by visiting pregnant women's homes and providing the MCH services as required. This study attempts to understand the role of CHW and its impact on the Ante-Natal Care (ANC) services pre-pandemic and post-Pandemic in the poor resource setting. Methods The Swabhimaan programme interventions were carried out in the selected blocks in the Indian States of Bihar, Odisha and Chhattisgarh with the objective to improve the nutritional status of mothers, pregnant women and adolescents living in resource-poor blocks of three selected states during 2016–2022. Cross-sectional surveys, namely pre-pandemic (2018–19) and post-pandemic (2021–22) of pregnant and mothers of under two children, utilised to fulfil the objectives of this study. These surveys are part of Swabhimaan evaluation, a community-based non-randomised controlled study. Results The ANC services received b...
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BackgroundTo make informed decisions on fertility treatment, couples need to understand the treatment options available to them. A wide range of treatment options is available from the traditional and biomedical service providers in... more
BackgroundTo make informed decisions on fertility treatment, couples need to understand the treatment options available to them. A wide range of treatment options is available from the traditional and biomedical service providers in India. There is a dearth of research to find out factors that influence the treatment-seeking behavior of couples, particularly in rural areas.ObjectivesThe study aimed to document the treatment-seeking behavior of women for their infertility problems. Further, the research focused on the socio-economic determinants affecting allopathic treatment-seeking of women and the services needed for couples experiencing infertility in rural India.MethodsThe study is cross-sectional. Primary data were collected from the two high infertility prevalence districts. Complete mapping and listing were carried out to identify the eligible respondents. A total of 159 ever-married women (20–49 years) out of 172 identified women were interviewed. Bivariate and multivariate ...
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This study assessed the rate of primary infertility and its associated factors among 402,807 currently married women aged 20–49 years in India using National Family Health Survey-4 data collected in 2015–2016. Dietary patterns and... more
This study assessed the rate of primary infertility and its associated factors among 402,807 currently married women aged 20–49 years in India using National Family Health Survey-4 data collected in 2015–2016. Dietary patterns and selected morbidities were included as independent variables, and socioeconomic variables were considered as covariates. Bivariate and multivariate analyses were done to estimate the prevalence of primary infertility and assess its association with the selected variables, respectively. The rate of primary infertility among currently married women in India in 2015–16 was 1.9% and this was significantly associated with younger age (<35 years), higher age at marriage (≥18 years), urban residence, higher secondary or above education and poverty. The consumption of dairy products (OR = 0.79, CI = 0.73–0.86), dark green leafy vegetables (OR = 0.57, CI = 0.39–0.81) and fruit (OR = 0.88, CI = 0.77–1.01) significantly reduced the odds of primary infertility. Dail...
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In this study women\u27s reproductive health has been examined according to the number of pregnancies, gestational stage of abortion, and number of abortions among the rural women of Haryana, India by analysing data from an in-depth... more
In this study women\u27s reproductive health has been examined according to the number of pregnancies, gestational stage of abortion, and number of abortions among the rural women of Haryana, India by analysing data from an in-depth interview of 329 ever-married women conducted in five villages of Haryana state of India during the year 2003. We found abortion at late gestational stage significantly deteriorates women\u27s reproductive health. More number of abortions also significantly worsens the existing reproductive health problems among women. The logistic regression results confirm that experience of abortion significantly aggravates all types of reproductive health problems among women even after controlling for the socio-economic and demographic factors. Further, when the number of abortion was taken instead of experience of abortion, the effect of repeated abortion (two or more) was found to be significantly higher for all types of reproductive health problems. Surprisingly,...
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An awareness of fertility and the factors affecting it is crucial to dealing with infertility, though little research has been conducted in the context of rural India. This study assessed Indian women’s perceived causes of, and strategies... more
An awareness of fertility and the factors affecting it is crucial to dealing with infertility, though little research has been conducted in the context of rural India. This study assessed Indian women’s perceived causes of, and strategies for coping with, infertility and the associations with levels of reproductive health knowledge in rural areas. Primary data were collected through mapping and listing in high infertility prevalence districts of West Bengal in 2014–15. A total of 159 women aged 20–49 years who had ever experienced infertility were interviewed. A Reproductive Health Knowledge Index (RHKI) was computed to indicate respondent’s level of reproductive health knowledge, and to show its association with perceived causes of infertility and coping with infertility. The highest mean RHKI score was observed among women in the lowest age group (RHKI=5.75, p<0.001), those with a higher level of education (RHKI=9.39, p<0.001) and those who had exposure to any media (RHKI=5....
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Assessing the Impact of Complete Lockdown on COVID-19 Infections in India and its Burden on Public Health Facilities A Situational Analysis Paper for Policy Makers International Institute for Population Sciences, Mumbai (www.iipsindia.ac.in) Assessing the Impact of Complete Lockdown on COVID-19 I...more
This chapter attempts to examine the nutrition and anaemia levels, hypertension and blood sugar across socio-religious communities (SRCs) using unit—level data from the District Level Household and Facility Survey (DLHS-4) survey, and... more
This chapter attempts to examine the nutrition and anaemia levels, hypertension and blood sugar across socio-religious communities (SRCs) using unit—level data from the District Level Household and Facility Survey (DLHS-4) survey, and National Family Health Survey (NFHS-3) 2005–2006. In Telangana, the nutrition status of children based on anthropometric measures is better for Muslims compared to other SRCs. However, childhood nutritional advantages are not passing to adult age health conditions of Muslims. It is found that Muslim women in the reproductive ages are bearing the burden of malnutrition. Muslims living in Hyderabad and Rangareddy districts have a higher prevalence of anaemia than other SRCs in these districts. Both the Muslims and Hindus-others are experiencing a sudden rise of blood pressure in the age group 30–39 compared to that of preceding age cohort (20–29). Similarly, they are affected by blood pressure and blood sugar problems at a relatively early age. The study linked health issues among Muslims with their distinct socio-cultural lifestyles.
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Maternal mortality remained as one of the indicators of health and development goal. Many countries lack the estimate of maternal mortality, and in some countries, estimates are not very reliable. In case of India, Sample Registration... more
Maternal mortality remained as one of the indicators of health and development goal. Many countries lack the estimate of maternal mortality, and in some countries, estimates are not very reliable. In case of India, Sample Registration System (SRS) estimates of maternal mortality based on three year pooled data are considered reliable in comparison to other sample survey. It may be noted that, in many sample surveys, rare events are not studies as it required large sample size. However, if the operation of house-listing can be used meaningfully to identify a rare event like maternal mortality and there is a high probability that all the members of household will remember this event. It may be noted that, around 5 to 20 percent of project expenditure is devoted for this operation, and this operation should be utilized to identify maternal deaths. Number of deaths covered during house-listing operation of any large scale survey will be certainly more than SRS. This will also help to ge...
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Adolescents, pregnant women and mothers of children under 2 years of age are in stages of life characterized by higher nutritional demands. The study measured the dietary diversity of 17,680 adolescent girls, pregnant women and mothers of... more
Adolescents, pregnant women and mothers of children under 2 years of age are in stages of life characterized by higher nutritional demands. The study measured the dietary diversity of 17,680 adolescent girls, pregnant women and mothers of children under age 2 years in the eastern Indian states of Bihar, Chhattisgarh and Odisha using data from the Swabhimaan baseline survey conducted in 2016. The association of women’s mean Dietary Diversity Scores with socioeconomic, health and nutrition service indicators was assessed. The sampled population was socioeconomically more vulnerable than the average Indian population. There was not much variation in the types of foods consumed daily across target groups, with diet being predominantly cereal (98%) and vegetable (83%) based. Nearly 30% of the mothers had low Dietary Diversity Scores, compared with 25% of pregnant women and 24% of adolescent girls. In each target group, more than half of the respondents were unable to meet the Minimum Die...
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This study aimed to identify the determinants of nutritional status of children in India with a special focus on dietary diversity at the state level. Household-level consumption data from three rounds of the Consumer Expenditure Survey... more
This study aimed to identify the determinants of nutritional status of children in India with a special focus on dietary diversity at the state level. Household-level consumption data from three rounds of the Consumer Expenditure Survey of the National Sample Survey Organization (1993-2012) were used. Information on the nutritional status of children was taken from the National Family Health Survey (2005-06). Dietary diversity indices were constructed at the state level to examine diversity in quantity of food consumed and food expenditure. Multilevel regression analysis was applied to examine the association of state-level dietary diversity and other socioeconomic factors with the nutritional status of children. It was observed that significant variation in childhood stunting, wasting and underweight could be explained by community- and state-level factors. The results indicate that dietary diversity has increased in India over time, and that dietary diversity at the state level is...
Research Interests: Demography, Environmental Health, Dietary Diversity, Medicine, India, and 15 moreMalnutrition, Humans, Child, Female, Male, Infant, Nutritional Status, Feeding Behavior, Family Health, Adult, Educational Status, Health surveys, Cross Sectional Studies, Child preschool, and Infant nutritional physiological phenomena
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This study aims to examine the socioeconomic characteristics of devotees at religious places of Christians Hindus and Muslims in India; to determine their frequency of visits; and to know their purpose of visit. The survey sites included... more
This study aims to examine the socioeconomic characteristics of devotees at religious places of Christians Hindus and Muslims in India; to determine their frequency of visits; and to know their purpose of visit. The survey sites included Mount Mary Church Lingaraja Temple Venkateswara Temple Jagannath Temple and Haji Ali Dargah. Most of the respondents were Christians followed by Hindus Zoroastrians and Muslims. Though the local people represent the majority of those visiting these places people from other parts of India as well as from outside the country come to pray at these places of worship. Moreover the visitors come from all educational levels as well as from all occupational categories. Their purpose of visit was mostly spiritual. In the Lingaraja Jagannath and Tirupati temples only high-caste people are seen in large numbers. One reason for this may be financial constraints. Most persons from the lower castes being poor they may not be able to afford the amount paid required for the pilgrimage. But caste discriminations still cannot be excluded. These findings indicate that visits to shrines fall under the domain of popular religiosity and where restrictions based on religion are not imposed people from all religions will come to worship.
Research Interests: Hinduism, Geography, Art, Pilgrimage, Religiosity, and 4 moreWorship, Social action, Caste, and Socioeconomic Status
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The emergence of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) in childhood poses a serious risk to a healthy adult life. The present study aimed to estimate the prevalence of NCDs among children and adolescents in slums and non-slums areas of four... more
The emergence of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) in childhood poses a serious risk to a healthy adult life. The present study aimed to estimate the prevalence of NCDs among children and adolescents in slums and non-slums areas of four metropolitan cities of India, and in rural areas of the respective states The study further, investigated the effect of the place residence as slum vs. non-slum and other risk factors of the NCDs. Nationally representative data from the Comprehensive National Nutrition Survey (CNNS) was used.. Estimates were based on children (5-9 years) and adolescents (10-19 years) for whom biomarkers predicting diabetes, high total cholesterol, high triglycerides and hypertension were determined. Weight, height and age data were used to calculate z-scores of the body mass index. Overweight and obesity was higher in urban areas than in rural areas among children and adolescents. Regional differences in the prevalence of diseases were observed; children in Delhi and ...
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Recent reviews on the use of experience-based food insecurity scales in the Indian context suggested the addition of "how often" related items to food insecurity modules to avoid overestimation of food insecurity, especially in... more
Recent reviews on the use of experience-based food insecurity scales in the Indian context suggested the addition of "how often" related items to food insecurity modules to avoid overestimation of food insecurity, especially in underprivileged communities. Following this recommendation, we adapted the 8-item Food Insecurity Experience Scale (FIES), an official tool for measuring access to food within the Sustainable Development Goals (target 2.1), and assessed its validity and reliability in socially-backward communities in the Indian context. The polytomous Rasch model was successfully applied and soundly integrated within the probabilistic methodology already in use for the FIES, allowing the computation of comparable prevalence of food insecurity at different levels of severity and related measures of uncertainty. Data from the SWABHIMAAN programme survey, which collected information on food insecurity from mothers of children under two years of age in three Indian stat...
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Research Interests: Medicine and Missing Data
The Parsi community in India is declining in absolute numbers since 1941. To what extent was this decline affected by enumeration, fertility decline or emigration? This article examines the relative importance of these factors in the... more
The Parsi community in India is declining in absolute numbers since 1941. To what extent was this decline affected by enumeration, fertility decline or emigration? This article examines the relative importance of these factors in the light of the 2001 Census and demonstrates that the unprecedentedly low fertility among the Parsis is the prime contributor in its declining population size. The Parsi community in India is perhaps the only commu-nity outside Europe to have experienced dramatic popula-tion and fertility decline [Coale 1973; Coale and Watkin 1986]. This indicates that a country that is experiencing high population growth can also have communities that have differ-ent kinds of demographic pattern [Axelrod 1990; Lorimer 1954]. This is due to the fact that wide cultural differences exist among different communities within a national territory [Kulke 1974]. Parsis are a small but prosperous religious community whose a population peaked at about 1,14,000 in 1941. The recent ce...
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Along with different indices of quality of age data, the rate of age not stated is also one of the important measures of the quality of age reporting in the census. The present study tries to explore the levels, trends and differentials... more
Along with different indices of quality of age data, the rate of age not stated is also one of the important measures of the quality of age reporting in the census. The present study tries to explore the levels, trends and differentials in age not stated in India and the major states over the period 1971-2011. Sex-wise comparison of age not stated over the five censuses shows a distinct pattern of higher rates for males apart from few exceptions. Age not stated is higher in the urban areas in comparison with rural areas. It may be noted that except in 1991, in all other censuses, rates of age not stated are higher for illiterates compared with literates in all the major states. Moreover, omission of the population in the last two censuses is found higher than previous censuses. The same pattern is observed for age not stated too. Hence, it may be a problem of coverage with proxy reporting of the population where all characteristics can be probed but age is difficult to be reported b...
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Reproductive morbidity is one of the critical health issues in the developing countries. The present study focuses on the relationship between self-reported reproductive morbidity and last pregnancy outcomes among currently married women... more
Reproductive morbidity is one of the critical health issues in the developing countries. The present study focuses on the relationship between self-reported reproductive morbidity and last pregnancy outcomes among currently married women in India. District Level Household and Facility Survey 2007-08 (DLHS-III) data have been used. Bivariate and multivariate analyses (logistic regression analysis) are also used. The study found a positive relationship between self-reported reproductive morbidity and pregnancy wastage. The women who experienced pregnancy outcomes in terms of stillbirth were more (OR=1.462; p<0.01) likely to have reproductive morbidity than those women who had a live birth. Women who experienced induced or spontaneous abortions were two times more (OR=2.287 and OR=1.625; p<0.01) likely to develop reproductive morbidity. Hence, a consolidated and effective programme is needed to reduce the prevalence of pregnancy loss by providing medical assistance to women durin...
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Sterilization is the most popular method of contraception in India. As the demand for sterilization services remains very high with a large unmet need, the country has continued with the camp mode (mobile clinic) to reach the people in... more
Sterilization is the most popular method of contraception in India. As the demand for sterilization services remains very high with a large unmet need, the country has continued with the camp mode (mobile clinic) to reach the people in under-served and under-reached areas. However, the camp approach throws out challenges in terms of quality in service (MoHFW, 2008). The 2005-06 National Family Health Survey found that female sterilization with a prevalence of 37% accounts for 66 % of all contraceptive use (IIPS & Macro International, 2007). Although the Family Welfare Programme has begun to give higher priority to spacing methods than to permanent methods, sterilization is expected to remain the most popular method for the foreseeable future. Unfortunately, the government of India has paid little attention to the quality of sterilization services, and has tended instead to emphasize achieving targeted numbers of cases. A great deal of research has been conducted in India, but few st...
Continuum of care throughout pregnancy, delivery and post-delivery has proved to be a critical health intervention for improving the health of mothers and their newborn children. Using data from the fourth wave of the National Family... more
Continuum of care throughout pregnancy, delivery and post-delivery has proved to be a critical health intervention for improving the health of mothers and their newborn children. Using data from the fourth wave of the National Family Health Survey (NFHS-4) conducted in 2015–16, this study examined the correlates of utilization of maternal health care services and child immunization following the continuum of care approach in India. The study also assessed whether the continuity in utilizing maternal health care services affects the immunization of children. A total of 33,422 survey women aged 15–49 were included in the analysis of maternal health care indicators, and 8246 children aged 12–23 months for the analysis of child immunization. The results indicated that about 19% of the women had completed the maternal health continuum, i.e. received full antenatal care, had an institutional delivery and received postnatal care. Women with a higher level of education and of higher economi...
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Background Child undernutrition in India remains widespread. Data from the National Family Health Survey 3 and 4 (NFHS-3 and NFHS-4) suggest that wasting prevalence has increased while stunting prevalence has declined. Objective The... more
Background Child undernutrition in India remains widespread. Data from the National Family Health Survey 3 and 4 (NFHS-3 and NFHS-4) suggest that wasting prevalence has increased while stunting prevalence has declined. Objective The objectives of this study were to do the following: 1) describe wasting and stunting by month of measurement in India in children <5 y of age in NFHS-3 and NFHS-4 surveys, and 2) test whether differences in the timing of anthropometric data collection and in states between survey years introduced bias in the comparison of estimates of wasting and stunting between NFHS-3 and NFHS-4. Methods Data on wasting and stunting for 42,608 and 232,744 children aged >5 y in the NFHS-3 and NFHS-4 survey rounds were analyzed. Differences in the prevalence of wasting and stunting by month of year and by state of residence were examined descriptively. Regression analyses were conducted to test the sensitivity of the estimate of differences in wasting and stunting p...
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IntroductionSwabhimaan is a community-based programme to improve adolescent girls’ and women’s nutrition in the rural areas of three Indian states—Bihar, Chhattisgarh and Odisha with high prevalence of undernutrition.Methods and... more
IntroductionSwabhimaan is a community-based programme to improve adolescent girls’ and women’s nutrition in the rural areas of three Indian states—Bihar, Chhattisgarh and Odisha with high prevalence of undernutrition.Methods and analysisSwabhimaan has a nested prospective, non-randomised controlled evaluation. Since 2017, five intervention sites receive community-led interventions through national government’s livelihood mission supported women’s self-help group federations and five control sites will initiate these activities 36 months later, in 2020. Community-led activities aim to improve coverage of 18 interventions including adequacy of food consumed, prevention of micronutrient deficiencies, access to basic health services and special care of nutritionally ‘at risk’ girls and women, improving hygiene and access to water and sanitation services and access to family planning services. The evaluation includes baseline (2016–2017), midline (2018–2019) and endline (2020–2021) surve...