Raaj Kishore Biswas

• PhD
• Biostatistician at The University of Sydney

Objective This paper reflected on the prevalence of hypertension and diabetes in Bangladesh, which is spreading rapidly in low-income countries. The rationale of constructing more health centers for addressing NCDs was assessed in this paper by determining the relationship between prevalence of NCDs, particularly hypertension and diabetes, and dist...

Background Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a much researched topic in medical health, which requires additional studies to understand various effects of demographic and geographic factors that can assist in developing the most effective treatments. Thousands of people of different ages are suffering from lifelong disabilities, either mild or severe...

Bangladesh is a culturally conservative nation with limited freedom for women. A number of studies have evaluated intimate partner violence (IPV) and spousal physical violence in Bangladesh; however, the views of women have been rarely discussed in a quantitative manner. Three nationwide surveys in Bangladesh (2007, 2011, and 2014) were analyzed in...

Both research and development (R&D) and military expenditure are pivotal areas for any country’s economy. However, most countries tend to spend more on military because of global insecurity and power politics. Nevertheless, this study shows the merit of R&D investment and how it contributes to the national human capital. An analysis was undertaken...

The spatial impact of socioeconomic determinants on the macro-level early developmental vulnerability of children was analyzed in this paper using Local Government Areas (LGAs) as samples. Five domains of developmental outcomes: physical, social, emotional, language and cognitive, and communication have been addressed as ordinal outcomes, and fitte...

Background Timely initiation and adequate number of antenatal care (ANC) visits are crucial for ensuring the health and well-being of both pregnant women and their unborn children. Despite recent progress, Bangladesh continues to face challenges in achieving sustainable development goal (SDG-3) related to maternal and neonatal health. This study ex...

Background The impact of changes in body mass index (BMI) on the risk of all-cause and cardiovascular disease (CVD)-related mortality has not been extensively studied. We examined whether changes in BMI status over time are associated with risk of all-cause and CVD-related mortality. Methods This longitudinal study recruited 90,258 adults between...

Background: Sleep, physical activity, and nutrition (SPAN) are key determinants of both life expectancy (lifespan) and disease-free life expectancy (healthspan) yet are often studied and promoted in isolation. This study examined the joint association of these three behaviours with lifespan and healthspan. Methods: Prospective cohort analysis of 59...

BACKGROUND Few middle-aged and older adults engage in regular leisure-time exercise. Incidental physical activity (IPA) encompasses activities of daily living outside the leisure-time domain. No dose-response study is available to guide IPA-focused interventions and guidelines. We examined the associations of device-assessed IPA intensities (vigoro...

Background/Objective: Despite surgery being the primary curative treatment for cancer, patients with compromised preoperative physical, nutritional, and psychological status are often at a higher risk for complications. While various screening tools exist to assess physical, nutritional, and psychological status, there is currently no standardised...

Background Sleep, physical activity, and nutrition (SPAN) are critical behaviours for health, although they have traditionally been studied separately. We examined the combined associations of SPAN and the minimum between-individual variations associated with meaningfully lower all-cause mortality risk. Methods This prospective cohort analysis inc...

Background Sleep is a crucial lifestyle factor with impacts on mental and cognitive health. The associations between objectively measured sleep and risk of incident dementia are not yet fully understood. To evaluate the associations of device-measured sleep duration and regularity with incident dementia and explore whether sleep regularity moderate...

Corresponding Author

Background This study examines the associations between device-measured sleep regularity and the risk of major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE), and aims to determine whether sufficient sleep duration attenuates or eliminates the effects of irregular sleep on MACE risk. Methods A prospective cohort study of adults aged 40–79 years from the UK...

Objective A promising strategy to increase population physical activity is through promotion of dog walking. Informed by multi-process action control and nascent dog-walking theory, we examined the effectiveness of a 3-month technology-based (dog tracker) 2-arm randomised controlled dog-walking intervention to increase dog-owner daily physical acti...

Background: Poor sleep and physical inactivity are lifestyle-related behaviors that impact cardiometabolic health, but there is limited insight into their combined association with cardiometabolic markers. Aims: This study investigated the joint association of device-measured sleep patterns (regularity and duration) and daily step counts with cardi...

Background Vigorous intermittent lifestyle physical activity (VILPA) refers to brief bouts of intense physical activity embedded into daily life. Objective To examine sex differences in the dose–response association of VILPA with major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE) and its subtypes. Methods Using multivariable-adjusted cubic splines, we ex...

Background: Studies examining the associations of intensity-specific leisure time physical activity duration with all-cause, cardiovascular disease (CVD), and cancer mortality are scarce and no quantitative or dose-response meta-analysis has been published. Objective: We examined the associations of moderate, vigorous, and moderate to vigorous leis...

OBJECTIVE To prospectively examine the association between device-measured sleep regularity and incidence of type 2 diabetes (T2D) in a population-based sample of adults. We also examined if meeting sleep duration recommendations attenuated or eliminated the effects of irregular sleep on T2D. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS We conducted a prospective...

Aims Incidental physical activity as part of daily living may offer feasibility advantages over traditional exercise. We examined the joint associations of incidental physical activity and sedentary behaviour with major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE) risk. Methods and results Analyses included 22 368 non-exercising adults from the UK Biobank...

Background: Research on the health effects of stepping intensity in free–living environments is limited and inconclusive. Inconsistent use of stepping intensity estimation metrics could explain current equivocal results. We aimed to examine and compare a range of different cadence–based metrics in terms of their multivariable–adjusted associations...

Step cadence‐based and machine‐learning (ML) methods have been used to classify physical activity (PA) intensity in health‐related research. This study examined the association of intensity‐specific PA duration with all‐cause (ACM) and CVD mortality using the cadence‐based and ML methods in 68 561 UK Biobank participants wearing wrist‐worn accelero...

Background: There has been a global rise in mental disorder among children. This study examined how depression and anxiety in children are influenced by the functional difficulties of both children and their mothers in the context of Bangladesh. Data and participants: The data was obtained from the Bangladesh MICS 2019 on 26,461 children aged 5-1...

The use of semi-supervised learning approaches can be used to extend a base-level classifier and offers a significant advantage by reducing the need for extensive labeled datasets. We utilized a two-stage semi-supervised learning model to classify physical activity intensity for wrist and thigh worn monitors, by retraining a base classifier with fr...

Importance: Physical activity guidelines are predominantly based on questionnaire-based studies measuring only longer planned physical activity bouts (>10-15 continuous minutes). To date, short intermittent bouts of physical activity that may be beneficial for health ('micropatterns'), have counted very little towards physical activity guidelines (...

Background: Hypertension is a major risk factor for cardiovascular disease. Although it is well established that physical activity is cardioprotective, it is less clear how cardiovascular stress-related properties (i.e. intensity and bout length) determine future cardiovascular risk in adults with hypertension. Objectives: We examined the dose-resp...

Objectives It is generally believed that gender inequality and women's lack of decision‐making power may restrict women's use of modern contraception, leading to high rates of unwanted pregnancies, abortions, and deaths. Evidence shows that empowered women are more likely to use modern contraception methods, but few studies have investigated this a...

Introduction Insufficient use of antenatal care (ANC) services and institutional births services can elevate the maternal mortality risk in limited resource settings. Hence, the key objective of this study was to evaluate the potential association between the frequency of ANC visits and institutional birth services in Afghanistan, while also identi...

Background and Aims The objective of this study was to assess current condition of three noncommunicable diseases (NCDs)‐diabetes, hypertension, and hypercholesterolemia and vulnerable cohorts among adults in Bangladesh. Methods The STEPwise Approach to the NCD Risk Factor Surveillance survey of 2018 was analyzed to evaluate the association betwee...

Background and Aims This study aimed to evaluate the factors associated with addictive behavior and mental health in adolescents aged 11–17 years in Bangladesh. Methods This study analyzed data from the Bangladesh Global School‐based Health Survey (GSHS) conducted in 2014. Adolescents aged 11–17 years studying government schools were considered as...

Study Objective Attempting to recover a sleep debt by extending sleep over the weekend is a common compensatory behavior in the population and is recommended by sleep-focused organizations. However, the purported benefits of catch-up sleep are based on a limited number of cross-sectional studies that relied on self-reported sleep. The objective of...

Background Step cadence-based and machine-learning (ML) methods have been used to classify physical activity (PA) intensity in health-related research. This study examined the association of intensity-specific PA daily duration with all-cause (ACM) and CVD mortality varied among cadence-based and ML methods in 68,561 UK Biobank participants. Metho...

Background We examined the joint associations of diet and device-measured intensity-specific physical activity (PA) with all-cause mortality (ACM), cardiovascular disease (CVD), and cancer incidence. Methods We used data from 79,988 participants from the UK Biobank, a population-based prospective cohort study. Light PA (LPA), moderate-to-vigorous...

Purpose The present study identified the vulnerable IPV cohorts of South Asian women, and the prevalence of and predictors of the women’s IPV acceptance. Design Cross-sectional survey - the United Nations Children’s Fund multiple index cluster survey. Setting Many South Asian women are accepting of IPV. Studies mostly focus on individual countrie...

Objectives: To evaluate the associations of device-measured sleep duration and regularity with incident dementia, and to explore whether regular sleep might mitigate any association of sleep duration with dementia. Methods: This population-based prospective cohort study of 82391 adults from the UK Biobank accelerometry subsample included adults age...

Background Sleep, physical activity, and nutrition (SPAN) are crucial modifiable factors for health, yet most research has examined them independently rather than exploring their combined and incremental impact on disease risk and mortality. Objective To determine the collective associations of SPAN exposures and establish clinically relevant targ...

Background: The longitudinal impact of changes in body mass index (BMI) on the risk of all-cause and cardiovascular disease (CVD)-related mortality has not been extensively studied. We examined whether changes in BMI status over time are associated with risk of all-cause and CVD-related mortality Methods: This longitudinal study recruited 90,258 ad...

Objectives The COVID‐19 pandemic has stretched Bangladesh government's capability for disaster engagement. As normalcy is interrupted, people's confidence in the government in ending the crisis needs evaluation, especially considering the past vaccination successes in Bangladesh and growing worldwide vaccine hesitancy amidst the COVID‐19 misinfodem...

Importance: Vigorous physical activity is a time-efficient and potent preventive intervention for major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE), although longer traditional exercise sessions are unappealing or inaccessible to most adults. Objective: We examined the dose-response associations of device-measured vigorous intermittent lifestyle physical...

Aim This study aims to evaluate the factors associated with addictive behaviour and the mental health of adolescents aged 11–17. Subject and Methods Bivariate analysis and weight-adjusted logistic regression were fitted to a sample size of 2989 adolescents in Bangladesh. Results One in ten and one in four adolescents had different substance addic...

Background: A comprehensive understanding of temporal trends in the disease burden in Australia is lacking, and these trends are required to inform health service planning and improve population health. We explored the burden and trends of diseases and their risk factors in Australia from 1990 to 2019 through a comprehensive analysis of the Global...

Background: Acceleration and changes in acceleration (jerk) stimulate vestibular otolith afferents. Bone-conducted (BC) vibration applied to the skull accelerates the head and produces short latency reflexes termed vestibular evoked myogenic potentials (VEMPs). Objective: To determine the magnitude, variability and symmetry in head acceleration/...

One of the most challenging aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic is the inability to ensure equitable distribution of vaccines to fight the pandemic. Many governments around the globe had to prioritize and perform a triage in distributing the vaccines due to the limited supply as well as a lack of financial strength to acquire a sufficient number of va...

Background Universal access to safe drinking water and sanitation facilities is an essential human right, recognised in the Sustainable Development Goals as crucial for preventing disease and improving human wellbeing. Comprehensive, high-resolution estimates are important to inform progress towards achieving this goal. We aimed to produce high-res...

Child with Low Birth Weight (LBW) has a higher risk of infant mortality, learning difficulties in childhood due to stunted growth and impaired neurodevelopment, is more likely to develop heart diseases and diabetes in adulthood. This study aimed to evaluate the latest demographic and health surveys (DHSs) across multiple countries in South Asia to...

Sustainable Development Goal 3 focuses on reducing HIV/AIDS spread, for which disseminating correct information on the disease is required. This study investigated factors associated with HIV/AIDS knowledge among women in several Asian LMICs. Global Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey-6 (MICS-6) for Bangladesh, Lao, Mongolia and Nepal were assessed....

Background: Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 3.7 concerns modern contraception use among women of reproductive ages. This study evaluated the progress of indicator 3.7.1 in 11 selected countries in South and South-East Asia and assessed the contribution of women's education to modern contraceptive use. Methods: Generalized linear models for co...

Background : The United Nation's Sustainable Development Goal 3.1 aims to reduce maternal mortality worldwide to 70 per 100,000 live births by 2030, which requires greater skilled birth attendant (SBA) coverage and increased health awareness. By evaluating relevant sociodemographic factors, this study aimed to identify different groups of women who...

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has caused disruptions to the functioning of societies and their health systems. Prior to the pandemic, health systems in low- and middle-income countries (LMIC) were particularly stretched and vulnerable. The International Society of Global Health (ISoGH) sought to systematically identify priorities for health res...

Two early childhood development aspects: carer involvement with children, and their ownership of age‐appropriate books, were evaluated. Children aged 0–4 years from Bangladesh, extracted from population‐based Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey 2019, were assessed using survey adjusted logistic regression models and district‐wise spatial distribution...

Background The COVID-19 pandemic has caused disruptions to the functioning of societies and their health systems. Prior to the pandemic, health systems in low- and middle-income countries (LMIC) were particularly stretched and vulnerable. The International Society of Global Health (ISoGH) sought to systematically identify priorities for health res...

Abstract Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has caused disruptions to the functioning of societies and their health systems. Prior to the pandemic, health systems in low- and middle-income countries (LMIC) were particularly stretched and vulnerable. The International Society of Global Health (ISoGH) sought to systematically identify priorities for h...

This study investigated the associations between greenness and blood pressure (BP) metrics (systolic BP [SBP], diastolic BP [DBP], hypertension) among urban adults in Bangladesh and the potential mediation effects of body mass index (BMI) using 2011 Bangladesh Demographic and Health Survey data for 2360 urban adults (aged ≥35 years). The Enhanced V...

Introduction: Split liver transplantation (SLT) enables two recipients to be transplanted using a single donor liver; typically, an adult and a child. Despite equivalent long-term outcomes to whole grafts in selected adults, the use of these grafts in high-risk adult recipients with high model for end-stage liver disease (MELD) scores (≥30), a poo...

This study estimated the attitudes of women toward accepting IPV at district level in Bangladesh and examined its relationship with sociodemographic predictors including exposure to media (e.g., newspaper, radio and television) using the Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey-2019 with a sample of 63,689 women. Around 25.6% women accepted IPV that geogr...

Background Asian and pacific region countries are high risk countries for HIV/AIDS. Although the prevalence of HIV/AIDS is low in Bangladesh but women in Bangladesh have been identified as susceptible due to associated socioeconomic exposures. There are various misconceptions associated with HIV/AIDS transmission among the women in low-and middle-i...

Young adulthood is a crucial period for major physiological transitions. Environmental changes associated with these transitions can influence health behaviour and health (e.g., poor diet, high body weight and elevated blood pressure (EBP)). Excess body weight can lead to EBP; however, little is known about this relationship among young adults in d...

Background In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, 6287 Australian healthcare workers (HCWs) were fit tested to N95 filtering facepiece respirators (FFRs). This study determined how readily HCWs were fitted to eight FFRs and how age and sex influenced testing. Methods HCWs were fit tested following the quantitative OSHA protocol. After bivariate ana...

Residential area greenness may influence diabetes, but limited studies have explored this relationship in developing countries. This study assessed the association between residential area greenness and diabetes among urban adults in Bangladesh. The mediation effect of the body mass index (BMI) was also assessed. A total of 2367 adults aged ≥ 35 ye...

There has been a gradual rise in the number of cesarean sections (CSs) in Bangladesh. The present study identified the cohort of women, who were more likely to opt for an elective CS based on their sociodemographic characteristics, pre-delivery care history, and media exposure, using the Bangladesh Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey-2019. The survey...

The persistently high prevalence of girl-child marriage and adolescent motherhood is a public health concern in Bangladesh. This study investigated the division-wise prevalence and the influence of education and religious affiliation on child marriage and adolescent motherhood among women in Bangladesh along with their consequences using 15,474 wom...

Objectives Menstrual hygiene management (MHM) has become a growing public health concern in many low-income and middle-income nations for its association with several health risks. This study observed types of menstrual absorbents used among women in Bangladesh and analysed the associated sociodemographic factors with the hypothesis that mass media...

Headway is a safety measure commonly used to investigate driving behaviour and driver performance. Its purpose is to reflect the following distance or time between a leading and following vehicle in traffic. It is therefore associated with drivers’ response time, such as in braking or swerving, during safety critical events. In the literature, dist...

This study examined the association of internet use, and electronic game-play with academic performance respectively on weekdays and weekends in Australian children. It also assessed whether addiction tendency to internet and game-play is associated with academic performance. Overall, 1704 children of 11–17-year-olds from young minds matter (YMM),...

Summary Background Rigorous analysis of levels and trends in exposure to leading risk factors and quantification of their effect on human health are important to identify where public health is making progress and in which cases current efforts are inadequate. The Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD) 2019 provides a sta...

Background In an era of shifting global agendas and expanded emphasis on non-communicable diseases and injuries along with communicable diseases, sound evidence on trends by cause at the national level is essential. The Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD) provides a systematic scientific assessment of published, public...

COVID-19 has spread across the globe with higher burden placed in Europe and North America. However, the rate of transmission has recently picked up in low- and middle-income countries, particularly in the Indian subcontinent. There is a severe underreporting bias in the existing data available from these countries mostly due to the limitation of r...

Rationale, aims, and objectives: The COVID‐19 pandemic of 2020 has overpowered the most advanced health systems worldwide with thousands of daily deaths. The current study conducted a situation analysis on the pandemic preparedness of Bangladesh and provided recommendations on the transition to the new reality and gradual restoration of normalcy....

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a social problem in Bangladesh with adverse effects on maternal healthcare. This study analyzed the sociodemographic factors responsible for intimate partner violence and its overall association with reproductive healthcare–specifically miscarriages, stillbirths and induced abortions (MSA)–using Bangladesh Demogra...

Background 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 rec...

An estimated 25% people suffer from mental health disorders worldwide. Almost 7 million suffer from anxiety and depression in Bangladesh. There are several factors that can cause stress among youths, both academic and non-academic, ranging from socioeconomic, environmental, cultural and psychological attributes. However, these are not widely resear...

This study investigated the factors associated with the prevalence of malnutrition among children under 5 years in Bangladesh. A child’s nutritional status was evaluated using stunting, wasting, underweight, and overweight. The association between sociodemographic factors and nutritional status was analyzed through a sampling weight adjusted logist...

Communications through mobile phones and mass media have shown to be useful for health promotion activities in developing nations. This study explored the potential association of mothers’ mobile phone ownership and mass media exposure on maternal health care services in a developing nation setting: urban Bangladesh. The Urban Health Survey 2013 wa...

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...

Objective The objective of Sustainable Development Goal 3.1 is to reduce the global maternal mortality ratio (MMR) below 70 per 100,000 live births by 2030. One of the indicators for this objective is the proportion of births attended by skilled health attendants (SBA). This study assessed the progress of low- and middle-income countries from South...

This study explored the association between socio-demographic factors and the body mass index (BMI) of women of reproductive age (15–49 years) in Bangladesh. Data from the 2014 Bangladesh Demographic and Health Survey (BDHS-14) were analysed using Multiple Linear Regression (MLR) and Quantile Regression (QR) analyses. The study sample comprised 15,...

The Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 3.1 is to “reduce the global maternal mortality ratio (MMR) to less than 70 per 100,000 live births” by 2030. One of the indicators of MMR is the proportion of births attended by a skilled health personnel. To achieve this goal low- and middle-income countries are required to increase the coverage of skilled b...

Reducing the mortality of children under-5 (U5) is an essential part of the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG). Although Bangladesh has made progress in reducing child mortality, there remain inequalities among different sociodemographic groups. Education is one particular key factor with a multidimensional impact on child health and survival. This...

Anemia (e.g. iron deficiency anemia) is a serious public health concern that often coexists within the same household, particularly threatening child-mother pairs. Despite the high prevalence, there is a paucity of research to understand the anemia status of child-mother pairs in Bangladesh. This study aimed to explore the anemia status of child-mo...

This was presented as a poster in ICAS 2019 held at University of Dhaka.

Objective Bangladesh, like many emerging economies of South-East Asia, has started to experience a double burden of continuing high rates of undernutrition and increasing rates of overweight and obesity. A lack of assessment of the nutritional shift leaves a gap in current policies: the growing overweight and obesity is yet to be addressed. The pre...

The Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 3.1 is to “reduce the global maternal mortality ratio (MMR) to less than 70 per 100,000 live births” by 2030. One of the indicators of MMR is the proportion of births attended by a skilled health personnel. To achieve this goal low- and middle-income countries are required to increase the coverage of skilled b...

Mass migration is increasing urban populations globally. One country where urban migration is significantly increasing is Bangladesh, where systematic research will explore the reasons for urban migration in order to devise policies in this area, including maintaining the balance of urban–rural developments. This study used the Urban Health Survey...

Health policies and public health studies in Bangladesh primarily focus on physical aspects of health, thus creating a gap in the literature regarding the assessment of the emotional-social environment for children and their developmental vulnerabilities. Interactions though literacy activities, such as shared reading times between child and parent...

A complicating factor for child marriage in Bangladesh is age heaping or digital preference, where young girls misreport their age, claiming to be older or younger than they are. Analysis based on four nationally representative cross-sectional surveys over the last 10 years has shown that the age adjusted results are similar to the reported age res...

Objectives Antenatal care (ANC) during pregnancy and skilled birth attendance (SBA) during delivery are important policy concerns to reduce maternal deaths. Bangladesh is one of the developing countries which has made remarkable progress in both services during the last couple of decades by improving the SBA service rate from 16% in 2004 to 42.1% i...

The Bangladesh Cricket Team has performed well in the recent past with steady traits of improvement. Apart from the players’ performance, some external factors are associated with the outcome of a cricket match. This paper investigates prematch toss, batting sequence, match time, opposition team’s origin and time (in years) as independent factors i...

Objective The availability of iodized salt in households remains low in Bangladesh, which calls for improving the salt iodization quality and its coverage. The present study assessed the socio-economic disparity in Bangladesh to characterize the availability of iodized salt at household level. Design Associations between different socio-economic f...