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Introduction: "Adolescence" literally means "to emerge"or "to attain identity" and is essentially the period of rapidphysical and psychological development. The World HealthOrganization (WHO) defines “adolescent” as an individualbetween 10 to 19 years of age. About 19.7% of Indianpopulation is adolescents. Nutritional health problems areone of the important health problem faced by adolescents.Prevalence of anemia in adolescents (15-19 years) girls is54%. Underweight is seen among 46.4% adolescent girls.Hence this study was conducted to find out nutritional healthproblems of adolescent girls in a rural area of Nagpur district.Menstrual hygiene was also studied.Material and methods: A cross sectional study was carriedout in one of the randomly selected school in a rural area ofNagpur. Calculated sample size was 145, though the studywas carried out on 150 adolescent girls in August 2019 usinga pre-designed and pre- tested questionnaire.Results: Mean age of study participants was 14.87± 2.77years. Prevalence of anemia was found to be 80%. Prevalenceof undernutrition was 36%. None of the student receivedweekly iron and folic acid tablets in last three months. Only28% study subjects received information of menstrual hygieneprior to menarche.Conclusion: Prevalence of anemia and undernutrition wasfound to be high in a school of rural area of Nagpur district.WIFS program should be strengthened through inter-sectoralcollaboration among health and education sectors
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Aims: There is an increasing recognition of the putative association between the use of biomass fuels and the risk of cataracts. However, the exact strength of this association is currently unknown. Our aim was to synthetically quantify the association between biomass fuel use and cataract. Study Design: Systematic review and meta-analysis. Methodology: Using results from the MEDLINE®, Scopus®, Web of Science® and Google® searches, we conducted a random-effects meta-analysis of the published studies. We also conducted subgroup meta-analyses, meta-regressions and sensitivity analyses to determine the contribution of potential confounders to between-study heterogeneity which was measured by the tau-squared and I2 statistics. Summary effect sizes (SES) were estimated using the DerSimonian and Laird method and the 95% confidence intervals (CI) and 95% prediction intervals (PI) were also estimated. Publication bias was examined using funnel plots and Egger’s test. Results: In spite of significant between-study heterogeneity (I2 70%, p=8.1x10-5), biomass fuel use was associated with a significantly increased risk of cataract (SES 2.12; 95% CI 1.61-2.80; 95% PI 0.88-5.09). Age-, gender- and other methodological differences did not significantly contribute to between-study heterogeneity but Indian studies showed a statistically significant association between biomass fuel use and cataract. Statistically homogeneous studies (n = 8) showed an SES of 2.01 (95% CI and PI 1.67-2.41). Conclusion: Synthetic evidence from observational studies indicates that biomass fuel use may increase the risk of cataract. Public health initiatives aimed at avoidance of biomass fuel use may reduce the burden of cataracts especially in settings where biomass fuels are commonly used.
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Menstruation in adolescent girls is often associated with menstruation related problems and poor practices. The study was planned to investigate the menstrual related problems and menstrual practices among school going adolescent girls. The study was a community based cross sectional study in a girls’ school in Nagpur. Majority of menstrual practices were significantly better in urban girls as compared to rural girls (P<0.05). Majority of the girls (71.83%) had at least one problem related to menstrual cycles. There was a significant difference in proportion of menstrual problems in rural and urban girls (P<0.01). Menstrual problems are a common source of morbidity in this population.
ABSTRACT
The objectives of the present study were to study the (i) prevalence of hypertension and hearing impairment in iron and steel industry workers, (ii) association between hypertension and hearing impairment, (iii) association between hypertension and hearing impairment, with duration of exposure, and (iv) correlation between levels of sound and noise induced health problems viz. hypertension and hearing impairment in a cross sectional study involving Workers working in iron and steel industry at Nagpur. Of a total of 804 workers, 770 workers participated in the study. There were five sections in the factory; Steel melting section (SMS), rolling mill section (RMS), quality control department (QCD), maintenance department (MD) and administration department (AD). Workers working in SMS, RMS, & QCD formed a continuously exposed group (CEG); workers of MD and AD formed intermittently exposed group (IEG). Workers were interviewed, examined and information was collected in a pre-tested pro-forma. Blood pressure was measured, and tuning fork tests were done to assess hearing ability. Prevalence of hypertension among CEG (25.51%) was significantly higher than IEG (14.05%). (X2-14.28, df-1, P<0.001). There was positive association between duration of exposure and prevalence of hypertension. The prevalence of hearing impairment was significantly more in CEG (20.5%) as compared to IEG (8.91%). (X2-11.69, df-1, P<0.001). Occurrence of hearing impairment was also directly proportional to the duration of exposure. The correlation between level of sound exposure and hearing impairment was found to be significant (r=0.98; P<0.05), the correlation between level of sound and hypertension was found to be statistically insignificant (r=0.84; P>0.05). The results of the present study indicate that hypertension and hearing impairment are commoner in workers continuously exposed to high levels of occupational noise.