ABSTRACT
Background and objectives: Tribal men’s reluctance in sharing responsibilities as supportive partners in reproductive and sexual health matters debar women from their sexual rights coupled with their negligence in health care and lesser utilization of reproductive health facilities. As a matter of fact a large proportion of ill health particularly related to sexually transmitted infections (STIs) suffered not only by men but also by their spouses. The present study was planned among one of the primitive tribes of Madhya Pradesh to understand the knowledge of males about reproductive tract infection (RTI)/STI/HIV/AIDS, RTI symptoms suffered, perception on sexual health, utilization of health services and to improve the knowledge by intervention of need based IEC (information, education, communication) strategy. Method: The study was conducted among 400 currently married men in the age group of 15-40 yr in one of the primitive tribes, Baigas of Dindori district of Madhya Pradesh. Eighteen villages were explored in the study. The IEC intervention was made by using quasi-experimental before and after with control design. Result: The baseline data generated indicated that Baigas male were poorly informed about RTI (18%), STI (21.5%) and HIV/AIDS (10%). Further, men also projected misconception on different aspects of sexuality. Women’s views recorded also suggested a disturbing trend regarding male involvement in reproductive health particularly related to STIs. Interpretation & conclusions: After intervention of IEC targeting male population in age group 15 - 40 yr by adopting a before and after with controls design the awareness was improved significantly. The utilization of the health services was also improved significantly. The study recommends replication of the IEC strategy designed in other Baiga villages for improving the reproductive health of the tribe.
ABSTRACT
OBJECTIVES: To compare the health behaviors of widowed women with those of currently married women. METHODS: We randomly sampled the subjects from the Jeollanamdo Resident Registration Data and we then selected 2,331 widowed women and 4,775 married women. Well-trained examiners measured the height, weight, blood pressure and abdomen circumference, and the women were interviewed with using a questionnaire. Logistic regression analysis was used to estimate the odds ratios(OR) of the two groups. RESULTS: The smoking rate (OR=2.46; 95% confidence interval [CI]1.65, 3.66) was significantly higher for the widowed women. On the contrary, the awareness rate of a smoking cessation campaign (OR=0.80; 95% CI=0.70, 0.92), a quit tobacco telephone line (OR=0.73; 95% CI=0.61, 0.88) and a quit smoking clinic (OR=0.74; 95% CI=0.62, 0.89) were lower for the widowed women. The rate of receiving a health exam (OR=0.80; 95% CI=0.70, 0.91), the rate of undergoing gastric cancer screening (OR=0.77; 95% CI=0.68, 0.88), breast cancer screening (OR=0.79; 95% CI=0.69, 0.89), cervix cancer screening in the last 2 years (OR=0.81; 95% CI=0.71, 0.92), colon cancer screening in the last 5 years (OR=0.74; 95% CI=0.63, 0.87) were significantly lower for the widowed women. CONCLUSIONS: This study revealed that the health behaviors are significantly different between the widowed women and the married women. To improve the health behaviors of the widowed women, further study and research that will investigate the socioeconomic and environmental factors that affect the health behaviors of widowed women will be needed.