ABSTRACT
Introduction: Adolescence is a period when individual starts coming up with their choices and develops personal lifestyle. This lifestyle includes unhealthy diet and physical inactivity which are the major risk factors of various non-communicable diseases of great public health importance like cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, obesity etc. Objective: To assess the pattern of dietary practices and physical activity among school going adolescents in Haldwani block of Nainital district. Material and Method: School based cross sectional study was done among 900 adolescents of 8th to 12th standard. Sample collected from 30 clusters/schools using simple random sampling. Results: Out of 900 students, majority were non-vegetarian. Daily intake of fruits and vegetable was observed among 31.9% and 73.3% of adolescents. Practice of eating junk food and meals outside home were seen more in urban adolescents. 55.6% of participants were found to be physically active, sedentary behavior was more common in urban area and adolescents studying in private schools.
ABSTRACT
Background & objectives: The National AIDS Control Organization (NACO) of India has been providing free ARV (antiretroviral) drugs since 2004. by 2012, 486,173 patients had received treatment through the antiretroviral therapy (ART) centres. The objective of this observational study was to assess the factors determining survival of patients on ART under routine programme conditions in an ART centre in north India five years after its inception. Methods: Treatment naive HIV positive patients who were enrolled in the ART centre between May 2009 and May 2010 and started on ART as per the Revised NACO guidelines 2009, were included in the study and outcome was assessed after two years of follow up. Results: A total of 1689 patients were included in the analysis, of whom 272 (16.10%) expired, 205 (12.13%) were lost to follow up (LFU), 526 (31.14%) were transferred out to other facilities and 686 (40.63%) were alive at the end of two years. Majority (92%) of the deaths occurred in the first six months of therapy. Age >30 yr, male gender, poor functional status, haemoglobin level <11 g/dl, body weight <45 kg and CD4 count <100/μl at baseline had significantly higher relative hazard of death. Most LFU also occurred in the first six months and these patients had significantly low CD4 count, weight, haemoglobin level and higher number of patients in Stages III and IV as compared to those who survived. Interpretation & conclusions: The study findings revealed poor survival in the first six months of therapy especially in those with severe immunosuppression. This emphasizes the need for early enrolment into the programme. The high LFU occurring early after initiation of therapy suggests the urgent need to build an efficient patient retrieval system in the programme.