Evaluating the indoor and outdoor environment: using a simple method

Housing is the conjunction of the dwelling, the home, the immediate environment and the community. Between 1960 and 1980, the urban population in developing countries more than doubled and is expected to reach 56% of the total population by the year 2025. In many cities, the development of squatter settlements and shanty towns had grown rapidly causing the destruction of green areas. The number of people living in urban slums and shanty towns is an indicator of conditions in the cities and the United Nations had estimated that about one-third of urban dwellers in developing countries live in such settlements. Poverty is highly prevalent among the residents of these areas. Outdoor environmental degradation, together with the social degradation affects the health of the urban population especially the poor causing a burden of ill-health, disability, poor indoor housing, and high maternal and infant mortality. The aim of the present study is to evaluate the indoor and outdoor environment using a simple method and to assess its reliability and validity. The scoring system, which was developed for the assessment of the indoor and outdoor environmental levels included 36 items [18 for the indoor and 18 for the outdoor] using a questionnaire. Results revealed that the proposed scoring system was able to reveal significance difference between served [water, electricity, and sewerage system were available] and unserved areas when using t-test, z-test, and chi-square testing. The proposed scoring system was reliable and valid especially in indoor assessment. Outdoor scores might need more modifications to improve its reliability

Breast-feeding and complementary feeding practices in Egypt and Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

An interview survey was conducted on 639 and 340 mother-child pairs from Ismailia, Egypt and Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia [KSA] respectively. The children were 12-36 months old. Mothers were selected randomly from primary health care centers. The study aimed at comparing breast-feeding practices in the study areas and to identify some determinants of exclusive breast-feeding and early complementary feeding. The study has shown that 39.7% of Egyptian mothers and 66.4% of Saudi mothers initiated exclusive breast-feeding at 4-6 months. Most of Egyptian mothers [60.3%] started complementary feeding early [before 4 months] as compared to [33.6%] of the Saudis. Egyptian mothers tended to terminate breast-feeding later than Saudi mothers. More than one-third of Saudi mothers did that during the first 6 months of child age, as compared to only 6.7% in Egypt. The majority of Egyptian mothers [77.2%] gave sugar water or infant formula soon after giving birth, the comparable figure in Saudi mothers was only [34.4%]. Women's primary sources of information and support for breast-feeding were: nobody [i.e personal decision], mother or close relatives, and medical personnel. In both study areas, early complementary feeding increased with higher levels of mothers' education, younger mother's age, mother's employment, shorter maternity leave, longer hospital stay after delivery, and narrower inter-pregnancy spacing. Early initiation of breast-feeding within the first hour of birth showed no association with early complementary feeding neither in Egypt nor in KSA. The study recommends that efforts to improve breast-feeding should include a variety of strategies and target groups, as well as modifying key behaviors found to be most detrimental to exclusive breast-feeding by trying innovative strategies in health education and mass media programs

Assessment of health beliefs of coronary heart disease patients

The present study was designed to assess the health beliefs of coronary heart disease [CHD] patients. Data were collected from 400 coronary patients. The instrument used was a questionnaire developed to obtain the following data: Socioeconomic characteristics, personal characteristics, patient's knowledge about the disease and Health Belief Model dimensions. Most of patients were moderately motivated toward health matters [60.75%], while 58% and 43% of patients had high perceived re-susceptibility and perceived severity scores. Most of patients had high perceived benefits of compliance with rehabilitation regimen. Also, 55.75% of the patients had low perceived barriers against compliance with such regimen. Knowledge level and socioeconomic status were significantly related to all variables of the Health Belief Model