RESUMEN
Ragging is prevalent in higher educational institutes in Sri Lanka and the deaths of some new entrants in the past have been directly linked to physical and emotional torture caused by cruel acts of ragging. Although there are general anti-ragging rules in place, the effectiveness of these measures is unknown. We developed an action plan to prevent ragging by integrating the views of the major stakeholders, implemented the plan and assessed its success. This article highlights the action plan and its success in a medical faculty in southern Sri Lanka.
RESUMEN
OBJECTIVE: We examined the association between total tooth loss and bone mineral density to determine whether the former can be used as a surrogate marker of the latter. DESIGN: A community based cross-sectional survey. SETTING: The community-study area of the Faculty of Medicine, Galle. PARTICIPANTS: A group of randomly selected 327 women volunteers aged 32 to 97 years. MEASUREMENTS: Anthropometry, total number of teeth lost and bone mineral density (BMD) of the lumbar spine and proximal femur. RESULTS: In categorical analysis, after adjusting for possible confounding factors, mean BMDs of the spine and proximal femur showed no significant differences in the thirds of the total tooth loss. In regression analysis, a loss of one tooth was negatively associated with spine BMD of premenopausal women by 0.003 g/cm2 and the trochanteric BMD of postmenopausal and all women by 0.001 g/cm2. These associations, however, were not seen in other skeletal sites. CONCLUSIONS: Total tooth loss did not show a uniform and significant association with bone mineral density, measured at relevant skeletal sites. Total tooth loss as a surrogate marker of low bone density cannot be justified in this population of women.