Abdur Razzaque Sarker

Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies · Population Studies Division

The impact of age and sex on health care expenditure has recently become one of the major concerns in many developing countries like Bangladesh. Age and sex differences in the use of health care services can be substantial at several stages of life which are reflected in overall healthcare expenditure. We examined the impact of age and sex of the p...

Introducing new vaccines within national immunization programs requires careful consideration of disease- and vaccine-related issues as well as of the strength of the program and the affected health system. Economic evaluations play an essential role in this process. In this editorial, we set the context and invite contributions for a BMC Health Se...

Background Cesarean birth (CB) rates have been increasing rapidly globally, including in Bangladesh. This study aimed to assess national trends in CB rates and to investigate associated factors in Bangladesh. Methods We analyzed data from the five most recent Bangladesh Demographic and Health Surveys (BDHS) between 2003 and 2018. A total of 27,328...

Background The distribution of healthcare services should be based on the needs of the population, regardless of their ability to pay. Achieving universal health coverage implies first ensuring that people of all income levels have access to quality healthcare, and then allocating resources reasonably considering individual need. Hence, this study...

Background and objectives Diabetes has become one of the fastest growing public health emergencies worldwide. The objective of this study was to estimate the average annual out-of-pocket cost of diabetes treatment as well as to find out the catastrophic health expenditure (CHE) and their determinants in Bangladeshi context. Data and methods The st...

Childhood obesity is a complex health problem. This problem is becoming evident worldwide. This problem is also increasing in Bangladesh. As per the World Health Organization, about 39 million children under the age of 5 in the world are overweight or obese in 2020 . A child's body weight when compared to his age and height, when the weight exceeds...

Rotavirus is one of the most highly prevalent communicable diseases in Bangladesh. The objective of this study is to evaluate the benefit-cost ratio of childhood rotavirus vaccination program in Bangladesh. A spreadsheet-based model was used to estimate the benefit and cost of a nationwide universal rotavirus vaccination program against rotavirus i...

Despite improvements in many health indicators in the last few decades, providing access to affordable and quality healthcare for older citizen remains a considerable challenge in Bangladesh. This study aimed to understand individuals ‘experiences regarding their healthcare-seeking, treatment cost, accessibility and coping mechanisms for the promot...

Objectives: About 2.3 billion individuals worldwide are still deprived of the amenity of handwashing with antimicrobial agents. The progress of handwashing with antimicrobial agents in Bangladesh is relatively slower than in many developing countries. The objective of this study was to capture the inequality of the prevalence of handwashing with a...

Cholera poses a substantial health burden in the developing world due to both epidemic and endemic diseases. The World Health Organization recommends oral cholera vaccines for mass vaccination campaigns in addition to traditional prevention practices and treatments in resource-poor settings. In many developing countries like Bangladesh, the major c...

Introduction Postnatal period is a crucial stage of illness for mothers and their newborn children. Lack of post-natal care (PNC) services during this period is lifethreatening for both the mother and the babies. This study aims at examining the associated factors of PNC utilization among the mothers to explore the opportunities to accelerate it....

Although Bangladesh has achieved remarkable economic growth and improved various health indicators, childhood malnutrition still is a big concern in improving child health in Bangladesh. This paper explores the prevalence and trends of severe acute malnutrition, moderate acute malnutrition and global acute malnutrition, as well as their socio-demog...

Objective The double burden of malnutrition (DBM) has become an emerging public health issue in many low-and middle-income countries. This study aims to provide important evidence for the prevalence of different types of DBM at the national and subnational levels in Bangladesh. Design The study utilised data from the latest Bangladesh Demographic...

Background Financial risk protection and equity are two fundamental components of the global commitment to achieve Universal Health Coverage (UHC), which mandates health system reform based on population needs, disease incidence, and economic burden to ensure that everyone has access to health services without any financial hardship. We estimated d...

This study investigated the reliability and factorial validity of Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9) in the context of university students in Bangladesh. The research aimed to assess whether the original one-dimensional model or a model containing both somatic and cogni-tive-emotional factors is appropriate in the case of a sample of university...

Objectives Out-of-pocket (OOP) payment is the major payment strategy for healthcare in Bangladesh, and the share of OOP expenditure has increased alarmingly. Dhaka is recognised as one of the fastest-growing megacities in the world. The objective of this study is to capture the self-reported illnesses among urban citizens and to identify whether an...

This study investigated the reliability and factorial validity of General Anxiety Disorder-7 (GAD-7) in the context of university students in Bangladesh. The research aimed to assess whether the original one-dimensional model or a model containing both somatic and cognitive-emotional factors is appropriate. A repeated cross-sectional survey design...

Background Rotavirus is a common cause of severe acute gastroenteritis among young children. Estimation of the economic burden would provide informed decision about investment on prevention strategies (e.g., vaccine and/or behavior change), which has been a potential policy discussion in Bangladesh for several years. Methods We estimated the socie...

Diabetes and prediabetes are overwhelming public health concerns in Bangladesh. However, there is a paucity of the literature examining and measuring socioeconomic inequalities in the prevalence of diabetes in Bangladesh. To provide reliable data and contribute to a nationwide scenario analysis, this study aims to estimate the inequality in prevale...

Despite improvements in many health indicators in the last few decades, providing access to affordable health care for elderly people is a major challenge in low- and middle-income countries like Bangladesh. The objective of this study was to measure the health-related quality of life (HRQoL) among older citizens in Bangladesh and to determine the...

Background Sustainable Development Goal 3.2 has targeted elimination of preventable child mortality, reduction of neonatal death to less than 12 per 1000 livebirths, and reduction of death of children younger than 5 years to less than 25 per 1000 livebirths, for each country by 2030. To understand current rates, recent trends, and potential traject...

Antimicrobial resistance is a serious challenge to the success and sustainability of our healthcare systems. There has been increasing policy attention given to antimicrobial resistance in the last few years, and increased amounts of funding have been channeled into funding for research and development of antimicrobial agents. Nevertheless, manufac...

The development of COVID-19 vaccines does not imply the end of the global pandemic as now countries have to purchase enough COVID-19 vaccine doses and work towards their successful rollout. Vaccination across the world has progressed slowly in all, but a few high-income countries (HICs) as governments learn how to vaccinate their entire populations...

স্বাস্থ্যবিধির নানা রকম প্রাথমিক জ্ঞানের মধ্যে সঠিকভাবে হাত ধোয়া অন্যতম। হাত ধোয়া দৈনন্দিন জীবনের একটি গুরুত্বপূর্ণ বিষয়। সুস্থতার জন্য সাবান দিয়ে হাত ধোয়া খুবই জরুরি। নানাবিধ কারণে হাত নোংরা হয়ে প্রতিদিন হাজারো জীবাণু মানবদেহে সংμমিত হয়। অবচেতনভাবে প্রতিনিয়ত আমরা হাত দিয়ে μমাগত চোখ, নাক ও মুখ স্পর্শ করে থাকি। হাত অপরিষ্কার থাকলে এমন স্পর্...

Background Despite improvements in many health indicators, providing access to affordable healthcare remains a considerable challenge in Bangladesh. Financing incidence analysis will enable an evaluation of how well the healthcare system performs to achieve equity in health financing. The objective of this study is to assess the burden of out-of-po...

Background COVID-19 has significantly affected the mental health of students. However, in the context of Bangladesh, no study has explored whether students from public and private universities have been affected differently. Therefore, the aim of the study is to focus on the prevalence of depression, anxiety, and co-morbidity among both types of un...

IntroductionHypertension is one of the leading causes of morbidity and mortality in developing countries, especially in South Asian countries including Bangladesh.AimThis study aimed to assess the prevalence, risk factors, and inequality of hypertension in Bangladesh.Methods This study analyzed the Bangladesh Demographic and Health Survey data from...

The study investigates the influence of household socio-economic status and maternal risk factors and health care service availability on changes in the under-five mortality rate (U5MR) using 29,697 samples. Potential risk factors which influence U5MR rates were investigated using multilevel logistic regression analysis and data from the Bangladesh...

The study, conducted by Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS), has also revealed the majority of elderly people get healthcare services from pharmacies, indicating a hazardous scenario of the country's health sector.

Oral rehydration solution (ORS) is a form of oral rehydration therapy (ORT) for diarrhoea that has the potential to drastically reduce child mortality; yet, according to UNICEF estimates, less than half of children younger than 5 years with diarrhoea in low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs) received ORS in 2016. A variety of recommended ho...

ডায়রিয়া বা উদরাময় একটি রোগ যা বিশ্বের সর্বত্র হয়ে থাকে। ডায়রিয়া হলো প্রতি দিন কমপক্ষে তিনবার পাতলা বা তরল মলত্যাগ হওয়ার রোগ। এটা প্রায়শই কয়েক দিন স্থায়ী হয় এবং এর ফলস্বরূপ তরল বেড়িয়ে যাওয়ার কারণে পানিশূন্যতা হতে পারে। ডায়রিয়া রোগের সবচেয়ে সাধারণ কারণ হল কোনো ভাইরাস, ব্যাক্টেরিয়া, পরজীবী, অথবা গ্যাস্ট্রো এন্টারাইটিস নামে পরিচিত একট...

Introduction Bangladesh has a history of endemic malaria transmission, with 17.5 million people at risk. The objective of this study was to assess the cost-effectiveness of universal childhood malaria vaccination in Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) of Bangladesh with newly developed RTS,S/AS01 malaria vaccines. Methods A decision model was been develo...

INTRODUCTION:Along with the developing world, Bangladesh has made a tremendous improvement in declining total fertility rate, however, this declining trend is not uniform to all the socio-demographic stratum. Incongruities exist between the numbers of children that women bearing and what they actually desired which refers to unmet fertility desire....

A double burden of malnutrition occurs when individuals, household members or communities experience both undernutrition and overweight. Here, we show geospatial estimates of overweight and wasting prevalence among children under 5 years of age in 105 low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) from 2000 to 2017 and aggregate these to policy-relevant...

Background Across low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs), one in ten deaths in children younger than 5 years is attributable to diarrhoea. The substantial between-country variation in both diarrhoea incidence and mortality is attributable to interventions that protect children, prevent infection, and treat disease. Identifying subnational r...

Introduction: Cholera is a highly infectious disease and remains a serious public health burden in Bangladesh. The objective of the study was to measure the private demand for oral cholera vaccines (OCV) in Bangladesh and to investigate the key determinants of this demand, reflected in the household’s willingness to pay (WTP) for oral cholera vacc...

Objective We estimated the effect of an employer-sponsored health insurance (ESHI) scheme on healthcare utilisation of medically trained providers and reduction of out-of-pocket (OOP) expenditure among ready-made garment (RMG) workers. Design We used a case–control study design with cross-sectional preintervention and postintervention surveys. Se...

Background Drowning is a leading cause of injury-related mortality globally. Unintentional drowning (International Classification of Diseases (ICD) 10 codes W65-74 and ICD9 E910) is one of the 30 mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive causes of injury-related mortality in the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) study. This study’s objective is t...

Background: Cervical cancer is one of the most prevalent cancers in women caused by the human papillomavirus (HPV) that leads to a substantial disease burden for health systems. Prevention through vaccination can significantly reduce the prevalence of cervical cancer. The objective of this study is to evaluate the potential health and economic imp...

The two-dose bivalent human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine [Ceravix] appears to be cost effective at Gavi (The Vaccine Alliance for Vaccines and Immunizations) negotiated prices in pre-adolescent girls in Bangladesh, but neither the bivalent vaccine nor the quadrivalent HPV vaccine [Gardasil] appear to be cost effective at list prices. These were the...

Background: Undernutrition is one of the major public health concerns in Bangladesh. This study examined the trends and patterns of childhood undernutrition, inequality, and its socioeconomic contributors in Bangladesh. Methods: Data were extracted from the last four rounds of the Bangladesh Demographic Health Survey (BDHS). A regression-based d...

Purpose The objective of this study was to measure the health-related quality of life (HRQoL) among pregnant women in the perinatal and postpartum periods and determine influencing factors that predict their HRQoL. Methods The study was conducted among pregnant women who live in a semi-urban area of Chandpur, Bangladesh. A total of 465 women were...

Background Community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) is a major cause of mortality and morbidity worldwide. Efficient use of resources is fundamental for best use of money among the available and novel treatment options for the management of pneumonia. The objective of this study was to systematically review the economic analysis of management strategies...

Objectives To determine the sex-specific prevalence, inequality and factors associated with healthcare utilisation for diabetes mellitus (DM), hypertension and comorbidity among the adult population of Bangladesh. Study design This study analysed cross-sectional nationwide Bangladesh Demographic and Health Survey data from 2011. Comorbidity was de...

Background and Objectives: In line with the global success of immunization, Senegal achieved impressive progress in childhood immunization program. However, immunization coverage is often below the national and international targets and even not equally distributed across the country. The objective of this study is to estimate the full immunization...

Background: We aimed to estimate the effect of the community-based health insurance (CBHI) scheme on the magnitude of out-of-pocket (OOP) payments for the healthcare of the informal workers and their dependents. The CBHI scheme was piloted through a cooperative of informal workers, which covered seven unions in Chandpur Sadar Upazila, Bangladesh....

Introduction Childhood undernutrition is a crucial public health problem globally. The objective of this study is to measure the prevalence of childhood undernutrition and assess the distinct role of various factors on childhood undernutrition in Bangladesh. Methods This study utilized the latest cross-sectional data from Bangladesh Demographic an...

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Objective To estimate the coverage and factors associated with full immunisation coverage among children aged 12–59 months in Bangladesh. Study design The study is cross sectional in design. Secondary dataset from Bangladesh Demographic and Health Survey was used for this analysis. Immunisation status was categorised as ‘fully immunised’ if the ch...

Introduction Child health remains an important public health concern at the global level, with preventable diseases such as diarrheal disease, acute respiratory infection (ARI) and fever posing a large public health burden in low- and middle-income countries including Bangladesh. Improvements in socio-economic conditions have tended to benefit adv...

Background: Complications during pregnancy, childbirth, and following delivery remain significant challenges that contribute to maternal morbidity and mortality, thus affecting health systems worldwide. Group prenatal care (GPC) is an integrated approach incorporating peer support and health education that provides prenatal care in a group setting...

The aim of this study was to explore the association of Infant and Young Child Feeding (IYCF) practices with health and nutritional status among children aged 0–23 months and to investigate the predictors of minimum acceptable diets (MADs) using Bangladesh Demographic and Health Survey (BDHS) data. Binary logistic regression models were performed t...

Background Acute respiratory infections (ARIs) are one of the leading causes of child mortality worldwide and contribute significant health burden for developing nations such as Bangladesh. Seeking care and prompt management is crucial to reduce disease severity and to prevent associated morbidity and mortality.Objective This study investigated the...

Introduction: Diarrheal diseases are a global public health problem and one of the leading causes of mortality, morbidity and economic loss. The objective of the study is to estimate the economic cost of caregivers and cost distribution per diarrheal episodes in Bangladesh. Methods: This was a cross-sectional hospital-based study conducted in publi...

Background Population estimates underpin demographic and epidemiological research and are used to track progress on numerous international indicators of health and development. To date, internationally available estimates of population and fertility, although useful, have not been produced with transparent and replicable methods and do not use stan...

This paper estimated mortality for 282 causesof death in 195 countries from 1980 to 2017, adding 18 causes to its estimates compared to GBD 2016. In 2017, the GBD study added numerous data sources, including 127 country-years of vital registration data and 502 country-years of cancer registry data.

Introduction: Dengue is a serious global health problem endemic in Brazil. Consequently, our aim was to measure the costs and disease burden of symptomatic dengue infections in Brazil from the perspective of the Brazilian Public Health System (SUS) between 2000 and 2015, using Brazilian public health system databases. Specific age group incidence e...

Background The Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study 2017 (GBD 2017) includes a comprehensive assessment of incidence, prevalence, and years lived with disability (YLDs) for 354 causes in 195 countries and territories from 1990 to 2017. Previous GBD studies have shown how the decline of mortality rates from 1990 to 2016 has le...

Background The Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD) 2017 comparative risk assessment (CRA) is a comprehensive approach to risk factor quantification that offers a useful tool for synthesising evidence on risks and risk–outcome associations. With each annual GBD study, we update the GBD CRA to incorporate improved method...

Background Assessments of age-specific mortality and life expectancy have been done by the UN Population Division, Department of Economics and Social Affairs (UNPOP), the United States Census Bureau, WHO, and as part of previous iterations of the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD). Previous iterations of the GBD used...

Background Efforts to establish the 2015 baseline and monitor early implementation of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) highlight both great potential for and threats to improving health by 2030. To fully deliver on the SDG aim of “leaving no one behind”, it is increasingly important to examine the health-related SDGs beyond national-leve...