ABSTRACT
Background: Inadequate water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) may lead to an increase in water-borne diseases like diarrhoea. The objective of the study was to assess water, sanitation and hygiene in the urban slums of Patpur, Bankura and to determine the implications of WASH on the occurrence of diarrhoea among under-five (U-5) children. Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional observational study was conducted during January-March 2020 by interviewing persons involved in water collection from each of the 182 slum households of Patpur, by two-stage sampling using a pre-designed structured schedule and the core questions on drinking WASH for household surveys: 2018 update by UNICEF and WHO. For testing the association between categorical variables, a Chi-square test was done. Binary logistic regression and the Hosmer Lemeshow test were done to know the predictors of diarrhoea in U-5 children. A P value of < 0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results: The proportion of diarrhoea among U-5 children was 0.34. Limited drinking WASH services were found in 3.30, 45.05 and 24.18% of households, respectively. Mobile objects users for handwashing were 14.05 times more prone to diarrhoea in U-5 children than those who had fixed handwashing facilities at their dwellings, yards or plots. Feeding children without handwashing had 5.70 times increased chances of diarrhoea among U-5 children than those who washed their hands before feeding. Conclusion: Handwashing facilities (fixed, mobile object or no facility) and handwashing with soap and water before feeding the child significantly affected the occurrence of diarrhoea among U-5 children.
ABSTRACT
Fuzzy clustering methods identify naturally occurring clusters in a dataset, where the extent to which different clusters are overlapped can differ. Most methods have a parameter to fix the level of fuzziness. However, the appropriate level of fuzziness depends on the application at hand. This paper presents an entropy c -means (ECM), a method of fuzzy clustering that simultaneously optimizes two contradictory objective functions, resulting in the creation of fuzzy clusters with different levels of fuzziness. This allows ECM to identify clusters with different degrees of overlap. ECM optimizes the two objective functions using two multiobjective optimization methods, nondominated sorting genetic algorithm II (NSGA-II) and multiobjective evolutionary algorithm based on decomposition (MOEA/D). We also propose a method to select a suitable tradeoff clustering from the Pareto front. Experiments on challenging synthetic datasets as well as real-world datasets show that ECM leads to better cluster detection compared to the conventional fuzzy clustering methods as well as previously used multiobjective methods for fuzzy clustering.
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: Diarrheal diseases are an important cause of mortality and morbidity globally in children under 5 years of age. OBJECTIVE: To find the prevalence and risk factors of diarrhea among children under 5 years. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A population-based analytical cross-sectional study was conducted in the urban slums of Bankura, West Bengal on the prevalence of diarrhea and feeding practices, nutrition, and immunization among 152 children under 5 years (69 males and 83 females). RESULTS: Overall prevalence of diarrhea was 22.36%; 21.73% males and 22.89% females were affected with diarrhea. There were 57.69% diarrhea cases in children of 7-12 months age group, followed by 25.71% in those of 13-24 months age group; with increasing age, the prevalence of diarrhea gradually decreased. Diarrhea was noted to be 20.33% in exclusively breastfed children and 31.57% in children who were breastfed for less than 6 months. In bottle-fed children, the frequency of diarrhea was 26.08%. The prevalence of diarrhea was 21.83% in completely immunized children and 30% in partially immunized children. Risk of diarrhea was 19.80% in normal participants and 27.45% in undernourished children. CONCLUSION: The present study identified a high prevalence of diarrhea in children under the age of 5 years. Findings of the study also revealed the demographic features, feeding practices, immunization practices, and nutritional status as risk factors of diarrhea, which can be tackled by effective education of the community.
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: Primary care physicians should be aware of the alarming population growth in the developing countries including India. OBJECTIVES: To find couple protection rate (CPR) and risk variables that affect contraceptive practice among eligible couples in an urban slum of Bankura district. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A cross-sectional observational study of 3 months was undertaken on 200 eligible couples in Bakultala urban slum, Lokepur, Bankura district, West Bengal to get relation between various factors that could affect contraceptive practices. RESULTS: Majority of the study population (59%) was young adults (20-29 years age); 65% belonged to nuclear families; one-third were married in less than 18 years of their age. CPR was 67.50%; 49% used permanent methods. Among contraceptive users, significantly higher numbers of couples were married during 18-24 years of age (75%), belonged to nuclear family (70%), literate up to class 10 (73%), having three or more living children (77.50%), and from socioeconomic status of class II (80%). Female literacy rate was higher than national average; 92.50%wives of eligible couple were literate; and tubectomy was commonest contraceptive methods. CONCLUSION: CPR was high, though different factors like age at marriage, type of family, number of living children, literacy status of female partner, and socioeconomic status significantly affected contraceptive behavior of the study population.
