Attitudes and Health Behavior of Lawyers in Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu.
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ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Barani G
PROVIDER: S-EPMC4518183 | biostudies-other | 2015
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-other
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Project description:BACKGROUND:Vitamin D has multifarious roles in maintenance of health and prevention of disease. The present study was undertaken to assess the vitamin D status of a rural adult south Indian population and to identify its associations with socioeconomic status and cultural practices. METHODS:Between June 2015 and July 2016, 424 healthy adults residing in Kattankulathur block in Tamil Nadu, India, provided venous blood samples and answered questions by personal interview. 25-hydroxy vitamin D was estimated by ELISA. RESULTS:Fifty nine (13.9%) of the 424 participants had 25OHD levels below 12?ng/mL (vitamin D deficient) and 175 (41.3%) had 25OHD levels between 12 to 20?ng/mL (vitamin D insufficiency). In univariate analysis, demographic factors associated with vitamin D status included education, occupation, socioeconomic class, and birthplace; lifestyle factors included sun exposure time, skin surface exposed to sunlight, use of sunscreen, awareness of vitamin D, and consumption of fish; and hygiene related factors included source of drinking water, availability of tap water at home, and closed toilet at home. In ordinal logistic regression, the following variables were found to be independently associated with vitamin D sufficiency: Duration of daily sun exposure below 30?min (Odds ratio 0.31, 95% confidence intervals 0.14-0.71, P?=?0.006), sun exposure 30-60?min (OR 0.49, 95% CI 0.30-0.80, P?=?0.004), male gender (OR 2.00, 95% CI 1.30-3.09, P?=?0.002), higher level of education (OR 0.80, 95% CI 0.69-0.94, P?=?0.005), non-consumption of fatty fish (OR 0.48, 95% CI 0.24-0.85, P?=?0.035) and presence of closed toilet system at home (OR 0.59, 95% CI 0.37-0.93). CONCLUSION:VDD and VDI are highly prevalent in this rural Indian community. The study identifies socioeconomic and behavior patterns that negatively impact vitamin D sufficiency, thus providing a basis for targeted intervention.
| S-EPMC6280507 | biostudies-other
Project description:OBJECTIVE: To isolate novel actinomycetes and to evaluate their antibacterial activity. METHODS: Three soil samples were collected from Vengodu (village) in Kanchipuram district, Tamil Nadu, India. Actinomycetes were isolated using serial dilution and plating method on actinomycetes isolation agar. RESULTS: Totally 35 isolates were obtained on the basis of colony characteristics on actinomycetes isolation agar. All the isolates were screened for antibacterial activity by cross streak method. Medium and optimization of day were done for the potent strains using Nathan's agar well diffusion method. Isolation of bioactive compounds from significant active isolates was done by using different media. The most active isolate VAS 10 was identified as Actinobacterium Loyola PBT VAS 10 (accession No. JF501398) using 16s rRNA sequence method. The hexane, ethyl acetate, dichloromethane and butanol extracts of VAS 10 were tested against bacteria. The maximum antibacterial activity was observed in dichloromethane and ethyl acetate; maximum zones of inhibition were observed against Enterococcus durans. The rRNA secondary structure and the restriction sites of Actinobacterium Loyola VAS 10 were predicted using Genebee and NEBCutter online tools respectively. CONCLUSIONS: The present study showed that among the isolated actinomycetes, Actinobacterium Loyola PBT VAS 10 (accession No. JF501398) showed good antibacterial activity against the tested bacteria.
| S-EPMC3621468 | biostudies-literature
Project description:IntroductionHyperglycaemia in pregnancy (HIP), i.e. gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) and diabetes in pregnancy (DIP), increases the risk of various short- and long-term adverse outcomes. However, much remains to be understood about the role of different risk factors in development of HIP.ObjectiveThe aims of this observational study were to examine the role of potential risk factors for HIP, and to investigate whether any single or accumulated risk factor(s) could be used to predict HIP among women attending GDM screening at three centres in urban, semi-urban and rural Tamil Nadu, India.MethodologyPregnant women underwent a 75 g oral glucose tolerance test. Data on potential risk factors was collected and analysed using logistical regression analysis. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves, sensitivity, specificity and predictive values were calculated for significant risk factors and a risk factor scoring variable was constructed.ResultsHIP was prevalent in 18.9% of the study population (16.3% GDM; 2.6% DIP). Increasing age and BMI as well as having a mother only or both parents with diabetes were significant independent risk factors for HIP. Among women attending the rural health centre a doubling of income corresponded to an 80% increased risk of HIP (OR 1.80, 95%CI 1.10-2.93; p = 0.019), whereas it was not significantly associated with HIP among women attending the other health centres. The performance of the individual risk factors and the constructed scoring variable differed substantially between the three health centres, but none of them were good enough to discriminate between those with and without HIP.ConclusionsThe findings highlight the importance of socio-economic circumstances and intergenerational risk transmission in the occurrence of HIP as well as the need for universal screening.
| S-EPMC4798719 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Exposure to heat is associated with a substantial burden of disease and is an emerging issue in the context of climate change. Heat is of particular concern in India, which is one of the world's hottest countries and also most populous, where relatively little is known about personal heat exposure, particularly in rural areas. Here, we leverage data collected as part of a randomized controlled trial to describe personal temperature exposures of adult women (40-79 years of age) in rural Tamil Nadu. We also characterize measurement error in heat exposure assessment by comparing personal exposure measurements to the nearest ambient monitoring stations and to commonly used modeled temperature data products. We find that temperatures differ across individuals in the same area on the same day, sometimes by more than 5 °C within the same hour, and that some individuals experience sharp increases in heat exposure in the early morning or evening, potentially a result of cooking with solid fuels. We find somewhat stronger correlations between the personal exposure measurements and the modeled products than with ambient monitors. We did not find evidence of systematic biases, which indicates that adjusting for discrepancies between different exposure measurement methods is not straightforward.
| S-EPMC10785747 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Tamil Nadu hosts a large bio-diverse area, which serves as an excellent site for the microbial studies.
| PRJEB28563 | ENA
Project description:Sanitation is intended to reduce the spread and burden of diseases transmitted from excreta. Pathogen reduction from excreta before sludge or effluent discharge to the environment would seem a logical and useful performance indicator for sanitation systems. However, the relative magnitudes of pathogen release from common sanitation technologies are not well understood. We, therefore, investigated the feasibility of performance measurement of different sanitation technologies in Tamil Nadu, India in reducing the release of the pathogen indicator Escherichia coli (E. coli). After conducting users' surveys and technical assessments of the locally prevalent sanitation systems, we classified them into 7 distinct categories (based on both observed physical characteristic and usage) within a widely-accepted physical typology. Faecal sludge and wastewater samples were collected and analysed for E. coli and total solids from 136 household systems, 24 community systems, and 23 sanitary sewer oveflows. We estimated the average volumetric release rates of wastewater and faecal sludge from the different sanitation technologies. Average daily per capita E. coli release was computed, and used as one indicator of the public health performance of technologies. We found that on-site installations described by owners as "septic systems" included diverse forms of tanks and pits of uncertain performance. We observed a statistically significant difference in the average daily per capita E. coli release from different sanitation technologies (p = 0.00001). Pathogen release from the studied on-site sanitation technologies varied by as much as 5 orders of magnitude from "lined pits" (5.4 Log10 E. coli per person per day) to "overflowing sanitary sewers" and "direct discharge pipes" (10.3-10.5 Log10 E. coli per person per day). Other technologies lay between these extremes, and their performances in E. coli removal also varied significantly, in both statistical and practical terms. Our results suggest that although faecal sludge management along the sanitation service chain is important, sanitation planners of the observed systems (and probably elsewhere) should direct higher priority to proper management of the liquid effluents from these systems to minimize public health hazards. We conclude that (i) the work demonstrates a new and promising approach for estimating the public health performance of differing sanitation technologies, (ii) if E.coli is accepted as an indicator of the public health hazard of releases from sanitation systems, our results strongly suggest that safe containment of excreta for an extended period substantially reduces pathogen numbers and the risk of pathogen release into the environment; and (iii) there are some simple but little-used technical improvements to design and construction of on-site sanitation systems which could significantly reduce the release of pathogens to the environment.
| S-EPMC9227721 | biostudies-literature
Project description:IntroductionThe EQ-5D-5L questionnaire is a tool that is a very generic and preference-based instrument to describe the health-related quality of life. We have generated the stratified index utility value for the Tamil Nadu population and compared the utility values based on socio-demographic and clinical characteristics.MethodsWe conducted a community-based analytical cross-sectional study using telephonic interviews from November 2020 till December 2020 among individuals aged 18 years and above who were infected by the coronavirus confirmed with an RT-PCR within 30 days in Tamil Nadu State. EQ-5D-5L profile, socio-demographic and clinical characteristics of the study participants were collected and analysed.ResultsWe interviewed 372 participants, with 57.5% were males, and their mean age was 44.5 ± 15.3 years. About 40% of participants reported as having comorbidities, such as diabetes (19.4%), hypertension (12.4%), heart disease (2.4%), kidney disease (0.8%) and others. The mean EQ-5D utility score was 0.925 ± 0.150, and the mean EQ-VAS was 90.68 ± 11.81. Overall, men had a higher utility value (0.938 ± 0.130) than women, (0.907 ± 0.170). Individuals with comorbidities, requiring longer hospitalisation were having lower utility scores than their counterparts.ConclusionWe report the EQ-5D-5L utility values for the COVID-19 illness. These values would help to estimate quality-adjusted life years in health economic evaluation studies.
| S-EPMC8739503 | biostudies-literature
Project description: Not available
| S-EPMC8172353 | biostudies-literature
Project description:India retains the world's largest burden of anemia despite decades of economic growth and anemia prevention programming. Accurate screening and estimates of anemia prevalence are critical for successful anemia control. Evidence is mixed on the performance of HemoCue, a point-of-care testing device most widely used for large-scale surveys. The use of dried blood spots (DBS) to assess hemoglobin (Hb) concentration is a potential alternative, particularly in field settings. The objective of this study is to assess Hb measurement agreement between capillary HemoCue and DBS among two age groups, children 6-59 months and females age 12-40 years. We analyzed data from the baseline round of a cluster randomized rice fortification intervention in Cuddalore district of Tamil Nadu, India. Capillary blood was collected from a subset of participants for Hb assessment by HemoCue 301 and DBS methods. We calculated Lin's concordance correlation coefficient, and tested bias by conducting paired t-tests of Hb concentration. Independence of the bias and Hb magnitude was examined visually using Bland-Altman plots and statistically tested by Pearson's correlation. We assessed differences in anemia classification using McNemar's test of marginal homogeneity. Concordance between HemoCue and DBS Hb measures was moderate for both children 6-59 months (ρc = 0.67; 95% CI 0.65, 0.71) and females 12-40 years (ρc = 0.67: 95% CI 0.64, 0.69). HemoCue measures were on average 0.06 g/dL higher than DBS for children (95% CI 0.002, 0.12; p = 0.043) and 0.29 g/dL lower than DBS for females (95% CI - 0.34, - 0.23; p < 0.0001). 50% and 56% of children were classified as anemic according to HemoCue and DBS, respectively (p < 0.0001). 55% and 47% of females were classified as anemic according to HemoCue and DBS, respectively (p < 0.0001). There is moderate statistical agreement of Hb concentration between HemoCue and DBS for both age groups. The choice of Hb assessment method has important implications for individual anemia diagnosis and population prevalence estimates. Further research is required to understand factors that influence the accuracy and reliability of DBS as a methodology for Hb assessment.
| S-EPMC8085154 | biostudies-literature
Project description:BackgroundCardiac disease in pregnancy is a major contributor to maternal mortality in high, middle and low-income countries. Availability of data on outcomes of pregnancy in women with heart disease is important for planning resources to reduce maternal mortality. Prospective data on outcomes and risk predictors of mortality in pregnant women with heart disease (PWWHD) from low- and middle-income countries are scarce.MethodsThe Tamil Nadu Pregnancy and Heart Disease Registry (TNPHDR) is a prospective, multicentric and multidisciplinary registry of PWWHD from 29 participating sites including both public and private sectors, across the state of Tamil Nadu in India. The TNPHDR is aimed to provide data on incidence of maternal and fetal outcomes, adverse outcome predictors, applicability of the modified World Health Organization (mWHO) classification of maternal cardiovascular risk and the International risk scoring systems (ZAHARA and CARPREG I & II) in Indian population and identify possible gaps in the existing management of PWWHD. Pregnancy and heart teams will be formed in all participating sites. Baseline demographic, clinical, laboratory and imaging parameters, data on counselling received, antenatal triage and management, peripartum management and postpartum care will be collected from 2500 eligible participants as part of the TNPHDR. Participants will be followed up at one, three and six-months after delivery/termination of pregnancy to document study outcomes. Predictors of maternal and foetal outcome will be identified.DiscussionThe TNPHDR will be the first representative registry from low- and middle-income countries aimed at providing crucial information on pregnancy outcomes and risk predictors in PWWHD. The results of TNPHDR could help to formulate steps for improved care and to generate a customised and practical guideline for managing pregnancy in women with heart disease in limited resource settings.Trial registrationThe TNPHDR is registered under Clinical Trials Registry-India ( CTRI/2020/01/022736 ).
| S-EPMC8801092 | biostudies-literature