Smita Sinha

• MBBS, MD (Community Medicine
• Additional Professor at All India Institute of Medical Sciences Rishikesh

Purpose Transgender (TG) women face violence, discrimination, and stigma, which affect their mental health and hinder their access to targeted intervention (TI) services. This lack of access may increase the risk of human immunodeficiency virus/sexually transmitted infections (HIV/STIs). However, the utilization of TI services among transgender wom...

A BSTRACT Background A community-based study on childhood injuries would provide valuable information on the epidemiology of injuries to undertake appropriate preventive measures. Therefore, the current study was conducted in urban poor resettlements of Rishikesh to estimate the prevalence of unintentional injuries and to document the sociodemogra...

Introduction: Medical colleges promote research by incorporating it into the curriculum, which enables students to acknowledge it as a career prospect. The aim of the study was to assess the perceptions of medical students on research curriculum. Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted among 544 medical students (interns and postgraduates...

Background: Asymptomatic bacteriuria is prevalent during pregnancy. If it goes undetected, it can lead to urinary tract infection with severe maternal and neonatal complications. Until date, India does not have any guidelines to test for ASB during pregnancy. Objective: To estimate the pooled prevalence of asymptomatic bacteriuria in pregnant wo...

Introduction: COVID-19 was declared a pandemic in 2020. It has had a devastating effect on human life and the global economy. To date, there is no proven therapy for COVID-19, even though rigorous research is ongoing to test multiple compounds across all systems of medicine. A need was felt to systematically explore the Indian system of medicine t...

Background: India shares a huge burden of the total number of global neonatal deaths. The neonatal mortality rate in Uttarakhand is higher in comparison to the national rate. Understanding the causes and contextual factors that contribute to neonatal deaths is critical for developing a health programme and policy. Therefore, this study was aimed t...

Background Primary contraction of full-thickness graft has been traditionally quoted to be 40%. There are lacunae in literature to elaborate on the factors influencing it ever since. Methods About 75 subjects who underwent full-thickness grafting procedures to resurface small defects were included in the study. The initial and final graft dimension...

Impact of conducting hand hygiene audit in COVID-19 care locations of India—A large scale national multicentric study –HHAC study

Objectives: India introduced BBV152/Covaxin and AZD1222/Covishield vaccines in January 2021. We estimated the effectiveness of these vaccines against severe COVID-19 among individuals aged ≥45 years. Methods: We did a multi-centric, hospital-based, case-control study between May and July 2021. Cases were severe COVID-19 patients, and controls were...

Background To maintain physical distancing for reducing the spread of COVID-19, online learning appears to be a viable option to carry on teaching and learning. Aim The aim of study was to assess the effectiveness of integrated flipped classroom and reciprocal peer teaching (RPT) using Google Classroom as a learning management system (LMS) for teac...

Background Pregnancy-induced hypertension is one of the major health problems leading to maternal mortality. Globally, one woman dies every 7 min due to hypertensive disorders of pregnancy (HDOP). Pre-eclampsia and eclampsia contribute majority of maternal, perinatal morbidity and mortality. The objective of this meta-analysis was to estimate the p...

The COVID-19 pandemic marks its emergence in China in December 2019. India reported its first case on January 30th 2020 which happened to be epidemiologically linked to China. On March 24, India went into nationwide lockdown. The number of cases increased in the country and a few hotspots were identified. Cluster containment strategy seemed to be e...

A novel coronavirus named as severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) emerged in December 2019, in Wuhan city of Hubei province of China, which got transmitted throughout the nation and even world. It was declared as a Public Health Emergency by WHO on January 30th 2020, due to the increase in the number of cases reported from v...

Herd immunity is referred as the indirect protection from infection caused to susceptible individuals when a sufficiently large population of immune individuals exist in a population. The transmission dynamics of a pathogen needs to be well characterized. The basic reproduction number R0 and the effective reproduction number Re are the centric conc...

Background: ICDS scheme has been playing its role effectively since 1975 when it was launched, but still there are some short comings which need to be addressed. Uttarakhand being one of the states with poor health indicators with respect to child and mother there is need to increase research on implementation of programs. Aims & Objectives: The pr...

Introduction: ICDS scheme was launched on October 2nd 1975 to address high infant mortality, malnourishment and poor learning outcomes. Since its inception was playing its role effectively, but still there were some shortcomings which were needed to be addressed. Uttarakhand was one among the states with poor health indicators with respect to child...

Anemia is major public health problem affecting 1.6 billion people worldwide. The poor compliance of iron supplementation remains main contributor for high prevalence of anemia. The current paper reviewed the effectiveness of direct observation of oral iron supplementation on anemia. A systematic search was performed through electronic databases an...

Background Microteaching is an efficient teaching tool to improve skills. Until now, its use is very limited in the health sector. A pilot study was carried out to improve the quality of home-based postnatal care by microteaching of health workers (HWs) and ascertain its feasibility for supportive supervision. Methods All (n=12) the HWs catering t...

An increasing incidence of congenital malformations (CMF) has been reported in India. Background and objective To ascertain the determinants of congenital malformations. Materials and methods This hospital based age-sex matched pair case control study was done at Advanced Pediatric Centre, Obstetrics and Gynecology Department (ANC clinic, Materni...

Background. The National Family Health Survey-3 (NFHS- 3; 2005–06) reports that the prevalence of low birth-weight babies is 22% in India. This old figure is probably an underestimate as this nationwide survey acquired information on birth weight of only 34% of babies. We aimed to make a fresh estimate of the proportion of low birth-weight babies....

An increasing incidence of congenital malformations (CMF) has been reported in India. Objective To ascertain the determinants of CMF. Methodology This hospital based age-sex matched pair case control study was done at advanced pediatric center (APC), obstetrics and gynecology department (ANC clinic, maternity ward, labor room, etc.) and special c...

Background: Primary health care as an approach forms an integral part of any public health curricula. The knowledge regarding primary health care can be delivered to public health trainee through conventional or the modular teaching models. Objectives: We aimed to observe whether there was any difference in the summative assessment scores between...

Background: Primary care physicians (PCPs) encounter a large number of patients with dermatological diseases. However, delivering appropriate management is a challenge considering the inadequate dermatology training offered during the undergraduate medical curriculum. Teledermatology is the clinical evaluation of skin lesions by dermatologists and...

Objective To identify the factors determining the successful outcome in infertile cases reporting to infertility clinic at a tertiary hospital, Chandigarh, India. Design Retrospective record based analysis. Setting and records The records of all 2049 patients registered with infertility clinic over the period of 5 years from January 2002 to Decem...

To estimate the burden of diabetes mellitus and pre-diabetes in tribal populations of India. The authors reviewed studies from 2000 to 2011 that documented the prevalence of diabetes mellitus in various tribal populations of India. The search was performed using electronic and manual methods. Meta-analysis of data on point prevalence was performed....

Background and objectives Menstrual hygiene is far from satisfactory among a large proportion of Indian women. To overcome the barriers for using sanitary napkins among rural women in Haryana, a social marketing scheme was launched. As the program is in nascent stage of implementation the factors influencing it need to be evaluated. Therefore, this...

India has recently completed 2 years without single case of poliomyelitis on 13 January 2013. This has brought South East Asian Region closer to eradication. Recently, India is being regarded as a role model for polio eradication efforts in other low-income endemic countries-Pakistan, Nigeria and Afghanistan. However, the near elimination of wild p...

Analysis of annual mortality data for year 2002-2009 of twenty eight villages in Ballabgarh block of rural Haryana was carried out to calculate suicide rates per 100,000 population. In addition, informal discussions were carried out amongst health providers to understand their perceptions regarding suicides. In a period of 8 years, out of total 455...

Since the launch of Global Polio Eradication Initiative in 1988, disease burden has been reduced by more than 99% globally. Lately, India has witnessed a year without a case of poliomyelitis. It no longer stands endemic and is being regarded as a model for polio eradication efforts in other low income endemic countries: Pakistan, Nigeria and Afghan...

Epilepsy is a chronic neurological disorder with major psychosocial correlates. Most epilepsy patients in developing countries are untreated or inadequately treated. It is essential to understand the pathway, to care taken by epilepsy patients in a community, to be able to target appropriate services to them. A community based study was conducted o...

Background: Antenatal care is an important pillar of safe motherhood initiative and is essential to reduce maternal as well as neonatal morbidity and mortality. The study aimed to explore whether women availing antenatal care are more likely to go for an institutional delivery. Methods: The study area was an urban resettlement colony located in...

The neonatal mortality rate in India is amongst the highest in the world and skewed towards rural areas. Nonavailability of trained manpower along with poor healthcare infrastructure is one of the major hurdles in ensuring quality neonatal care. We reviewed case studies and relevant literature from low and middle income countries and documented alt...

Aims: Metabolic syndrome is a clustering of cardiovascular risk factors. Asian Indians, particularly women, have been reported to be at higher risk of developing metabolic syndrome. We aimed to estimate the prevalence of metabolic syndrome and its selected known determinants among adult Asian Indian women of lower socioeconomic status. Methods:...

Iodine is an essential micronutrient for humans but its deficiency can cause public health problems. The objective of this study was to estimate the consumption of adequately iodized salt on a household level, and to study the availability, procurement, storage, cost, and knowledge regarding iodized salt and iodine deficiency disorders amongst reta...

The metabolic syndrome is an important cluster of coronary heart disease risk factors with common insulin resistance. Although the prevalence of metabolic syndrome is high among Asians, including Indians, no sizeable literature is available about the magnitude of metabolic syndrome in rural areas, especially in women. Blood pressure and anthropomet...