Impact Of Health Awareness Intervention Among The Women Sweepers Working Under The Midnapore Municipality Of West Bengal, India.

Background: Women sweepers is the vulnerable segment of our community and suffering from different occupational health problems due to limited education, lack of knowledge on occupational health hazards. The present study aimed to assess the awareness level regarding occupational health and personal hygiene and to evaluate the effect of occupational health intervention among the women sweepers. Methods: The study adopted a pre-test and post-test design. A total of 52 women sweepers in the age group of 25 to 60 years were selected randomly from Midnapore Municipality of West Bengal, India. At first, a self-structured questionnaire was prepared on the aspects of general health, occupational health, personal hygiene, environmental health and nutritional aspects. After the pre-awareness assessment an intervention package was delivered covering said domains. Than post testing was done on the participants after the period of intervention. Results: Results demonstrated that there was a considerable increase in the awareness levels among the women sweepers with regard to knowledge of health problems, occupational health. The knowledge of participants regarding personal hygiene improved markedly after imparting the intervention. With regards to preventive approaches of diseases among the women has increased after the intervention. Overall health knowledge increased significantly post-awareness stage than pre-awareness stage (P<0.001). Conclusion: The study concluded that occupational health intervention has a positive effect towards the improvement of awareness level among the women sweepers which may change their health habits.

Evaluation of Nutritional Status by Mid-Upper Arm Circumference Amongst Affluent Children.

Introduction: Anthropometry is widely accepted as low-cost technique for defining the nutritional status of children. The mid upper arm circumference (MUAC) is a fast screening method in detecting acute malnutrition and it is also a predictor of childhood mortality. Materials and Methods: This is the retrospective study to evaluate the nutritional status based on mid upper arm circumference (MUAC) among urban, pre-school age children. A total of 1060 children, aged 1 to 3 years, attending the vaccination clinic of the Indian Red Cross Society Paschim Medinipur Hospital over a two years period, were enrolled in the study. The measurement of MUAC (in centimetres) was taken by the standard technique. Undernutrition was defined based on age and sex-specific MUAC cut-off values as recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO). Results: Boys were higher level of mean MUAC than girls at all ages and there was no significant sex differences. The age-combined rate of overall undernutrition was 18.96% and it was slightly higher among the boys (19.38%) than girls (18.46%). The age-combined moderate undernutrition was higher among the boys (16.08% vs 14.11%) but girls’ value was higher in case of severe undernutrition (3.28% vs 4.35%). Conclusion: The present study showed that a remarkable number of pre-schooler was undernourished based on MUAC.

A Comparative Study on Nutritional Status of Urban and Rural Early Adolescent School Girls of West Bengal, India.

Objectives: Adolescents remain largely neglected and especially girl from a deprived section in our society. The present study is an attempt to evaluate the nutritional status of early adolescent school girl from rural and urban areas. The study was, therefore, carried out to determine and compare the nutritional status of adolescent girl attending urban and rural secondary schools in Paschim Medinipur district of West Bengal, India. Methods: Cross-sectional data based on anthropometric measurements (height, weight) was collected from 2545 girls aged 10 to 14 years attending Govt. approved schools in Kharagpur town and Dantan-II block. The nutritional status has been assessed with the help of some anthropometric indices. The weight and height were recorded for each girl, and converted to nutritional indices (weightfor- age, height-for-height, BMI-for-age Z-scores of the National Center for Health Statistics reference standrads). Results: The mean nutritional indices (underweight, stunting and thinness) were found to be much lower among the rural girl than urban girl. The overall prevalent rates of underweight, stunting and thinness were 27.9%, 32.5% and 20.2% respectively. In the rural area these were 35.4%, 35.7% and 26.3%, while in the urban they were 19.6%, 29.0% and 13.6% respectively. Conclusions: The present study shows that undernutrition constituted major health problems among early adolescent school girls in rural areas of India. Hence, the special emphases are needed to formulate various developmental and healthcare programmes for rural communities to prevent undernutrition.

Genesis of domestic sewage--case study of a residential university campus.

The study reports on the genesis of domestic sewage in a predominantly residential university campus area ofDhanbad, Jharkhand. The domestic sewage has been collected from three different locations of the campus area and their physicochemical characteristics have been studied. These studies reveal that the extent of mineral pick-up is different for different parameter. It has been found out in the present study that in the domestic sewage, the chloride pick-up is 71%, nitrate pick-up is 97%, total hardness pick-up is 20 %, iron pick-up is 98% and zinc pick-up is 98%. The rate constants have been found out by using standard methods and have been compared with those mentioned in the standard literatures and previous works.

Dental fluorosis in bovine of Nayagarh district of Orissa.

Chronic fluoride toxicity in the form of dental fluorosis was observed in cattle from nine (9) villages under two (2) blocks of Nayagarh district of Orissa. Out of 1117 cattle, 221 (18.09%) showed the signs of dental fluorosis. In all affected villages, the prevalence of dental fluorosis in calves (< 1 year age) was greater than adults. There was significant difference in prevalence in respect to age. The commonly observed signs of dental fluorosis were brown discoloration, mottling, attrition or uneven wearing of teeth with or without pitting. None of the affected animals showed characteristic signs of osteofluorosis. The mean serum and urine fluoride concentration of affected animals were significantly (P < 0.05) higher than those of control animals. Fluoride levels (mean) of ground water and surface water in two blocks were 1.30 +/- 0.16 ppm, 0. 66 +/- 0.08 ppm and 1.12 +/- 0.19 ppm, 0. 48 +/- 0.05 ppm respectively. The fluoride content of grass samples of affected and control (non-endemic) area was comparable. There was a highly positive correlation (r = + 0.664) between prevalence of dental fluorosis and fluoride content of ground water. It was concluded that fluoride intake through the water especially ground water contributed to the development of fluorosis in cattle.

Bone morphogenetic proteins--novel regulators of bone formation.

Bone morphogenetic proteins (BMPs), hydrophobic, non-species specific glycoproteins, belong to the expanding transforming growth factor-beta (TGF-beta) superfamily. BMP has pleiotropic function that range from extraskeletal and skeletal organogenesis to bone generation and regeneration. It induces de novo bone formation in post fetal life through the process of direct (intra membranous) and endochondral ossification and their response is dose dependent. Through recombinant gene technology, BMP is available at least in ten forms for basic research and clinical trials. Amino acid sequences and physical properties of BMP family members have been identified. BMP research extends to the fields of developmental biology, genetics and evolution.

Antitumor activity of Hygrophila spinosa on Ehrlich ascites carcinoma and sarcoma-180 induced mice.

Petroleum ether extract from H. spinosa root exhibited antitumor activity in Ehrlich ascites carcinoma and Sarcoma-180 bearing mice Processed extract suppressed significantly the tumor fluid volume at the end of 3 weeks experiment. It decreased about 50% of packed cell volume and increased life span of EAC/S-180 bearing mice in a day dependent manner. Red blood cell count, hemoglobin content and white blood cell count were more or less normal after processed extract treatment of the tumor bearing mice. In tumor control animals, neutrophils increased (273.7% in EAC and 263.4% in S-180 bearing mice respectively with respect to normal mice) whereas lymphocytes decreased (60.0% in EAC and 56.5% in S-180 bearing mice respectively with respect to normal mice). It also inhibited the rapid increase of body weight of tumor bearing mice.

Effect of petroleum ether extract from Hygrophila spinosa on hematological parameters and hepatorenal functions in mice.

Multiple doses of H. spinosa were administered, ip once in a week for 4 weeks (20, 40 and 80 mg/kg body weight) and daily for one month (2, 4 and 8 mg/kg body weight). No alteration in biochemical parameters at low and moderate dose level of daily and low dose level of weekly treatment of petroleum ether extract was observed. However, the extract at moderate dose level in weekly treatment changed serum aminotransferase, alkaline phosphatase and plasma cholesterol significantly. High dose level of the extract changed all the above parameters of weekly treated mice including total bilirubin, nonprotein nitrogen, blood urea and plasma protein. High dose level of daily treatment and moderate and high dose level of weekly treatment of the root extract increased only the white blood cell count significantly. The results reveal that the weekly moderate and high dose (above 40 mg/kg body weight) and daily/therapeutic high dose (8 mg/kg) of the petroleum ether extract of H. spinosa affects liver and kidney functions and metabolism and hematological parameters whereas low weekly dose (20 mg/kg) and low and moderate daily/therapeutic dose (2 and 4 mg/kg) does not exhibit any appreciable toxic action.

Further simplification of the general analysis of the intercalative drug-DNA interaction.

The application of McGhee and von Hippel's general equation [J. Mol. Biol., 86 (1974), 469-489, Eq. (15)] to the analysis of the interaction of intercalative drugs with DNA has been further simplified. The value of n can now be determined mathematically, using a simple function, and without any approximation. It is also established that the summation of squared deviation of (( (nu/c), nu)) points would be minimum for and only for the true set of (K,n,omega) of the interaction system. The method incorporating the simplification has been applied to determine the binding parameters of adriamycin-DNA interaction according to the above general equation.