Annual National IAPSM Conference 2023 by AIIMS Bibinagar Hyderabad Date: 02 - 04 Feb 2023 Theme: Introspection & Innovation in Public Health

Mining generates impurities which are released into the air from operations such as drilling, blasting, shovelling, and tipping. The mining sector in India is one of the largest employers, with around four per cent of the workforce . Global burden of disease studies estimates pulmonary disease as the third leading cause of death worldwide, with increased mortality among workers seen with chronic exposures to silica dust. Pulmonary disease is also the second major cause of DALY. Pneumoconiosis caused by the inhalation of certain types of dust is a grave complication for workers involved in mining. It is progressive in nature and is irreversible with no available treatment modalities.

Background: Vaccines can prevent the adverse effects, even if the virus is contracted. The first group to receive the doses included the healthcare workers. While data shows that two vaccine shots are largely effective at protecting against severe Covid-19, data on the benefit of booster shots is currently unclear. To establish whether a booster dose would offer significantly increased protection, experts first need to understand the level of antibodies and other immune defences needed to prevent severe illness and death from Covid-19.
 Objectives: To conduct a study to see the clinical exposure profile of the doctors who had taken both doses of vaccines 6 months and before from COVID vaccination centre of BelleVue Clinic, Kolkata and to analyse the antibody levels of the doctors who had been vaccinated with two doses of vaccine 6 months ago and before.
 Methodology: An observational, descriptive, cross-sectional, hospital based study was conducted in the Bellevue Clinic of Kolkata, West Bengal in the span of 6 months from September 2021 to January 2022 taking the health care workers of the clinic as participants. The persons were called for an antibody testing on prefixed scheduled dates. The persons who gave consent were provided with pre-designed validated questionnaire. A total of 130 health care workers including doctors, nurses, housekeeping and administrators gave consent to participate. Blood was collected from them and antibody test was conducted by COVID specific antibody testing kits (Product V 74339 - Access S variants ARS CoV -2 IgG (1st IS) Reagent Kit (200 tests/kit).
 Results: The study was carried out the Pathology department of Bellevue Clinic, Kolkata. The data was analyzed and results showed 80% of the persons whose titre came below the cutoff mark were males. The health care workers belonging to age group 40-60 years were the maximum having lower antibody titres followed by those above 60 years of age. Doctors were the persons who were mostly having lower levels of antibody titres followed by nurses. This may be due to the maximum exposure to the Covid patients that their antibody titre weaned off early. This shows that those who had direct exposure to patients had much higher antibody titres.
 Conclusion: The study opened up a wide angle to the antibody levels of the covid vaccinated health care workers. The results will help the future researchers to develop different means for a Covid free or a normal healthy life based on this data.

Background: A massive global human disaster has been created by a contagious respiratory infectious disease caused by SARS CoV-2, which was classified as a pandemic by World Health Organisation (WHO). During this second wave of COVID-19, vaccination is utmost important for the healthcare workers to reduce the severity of the disease.
 Objective: The present study was done to study the socio-demographic profile of the health care workers attending a COVID vaccination centre and to assess the knowledge and apprehensions regarding COVID-19 vaccine among them.
 Methodology: An observational, descriptive, cross-sectional study was conducted for 6 months. All the health care workers getting COVID-19 Vaccine in the chosen time span and health care workers giving consent for the study were included in the present study while those being sick or giving no consent were excluded.
 Results: In this study, around 33.8% of the study population were aged between 21—30 years, 84.6% resided in urban areas, 58% have taken the 2nd dose of vaccine in last one month, which showed a positive attitude and acceptance regarding COVID-19 vaccine among them. Around 97% have taken Covishield vaccine rather than Covaxin. None of the health care workers have reported AEFI, but some of them (14%) have suffered from mild fever, headache and body pain after taking the vaccine. Around 23% of them suffered from COVID-19 before vaccination but after vaccination 14% have reported about being infected. After vaccination, 58.5% of them thought they were “less likely” to get COVID-19. Most of the them (77%) know that only vaccination cannot end the disease. Almost all health care workers (97%) take the responsibility of encouraging other people to take the vaccine without any fear. Conclusion: The study shows that there are diminished worries among the healthcare workers regarding acquiring the Covid-19 infection after receiving the vaccines. All of them are quite familiar with the term ‘COVID Appropriate Behaviour’. Most of them are encouraging their colleagues, friends, relatives to take the vaccine as soon as possible which reveals their acceptance of Covid-19 vaccine.

Introduction Computers have become ubiquitous in today's world and have considerable impact on human health. This study was planned to assess the common work-related morbidity among software professionals in a selected software firm in Chennai, Tamil Nadu and to identify the role of occupational characteristics and ergonomics of workstation on morbidity profile of the participants. Materials and methods This was a descriptive, cross-sectional study conducted between January and February 2020 among 160 employees of a software firm in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, using a pretested, semi-structured questionnaire consisting of sociodemographic and occupational characteristics, morbidity profile including perceived stress scale and workstation ergonomics. A p value of <0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results The response rate was 98.1% (152 participants). Among the 152 employees who participated, 88.8% reported work-related morbidity; 75.7% and 74.3% reported visual and musculoskeletal symptoms respectively. Eye strain (52%) and pain (49.3%) respectively were the commonest visual and musculoskeletal symptoms reported; 56.6% employees reported moderate and 12.5% reported high levels of stress. The occurrence of visual symptoms were significantly associated with gender, duration of work experience, work-hours per day and poor workstation ergonomics (P<0.05). Conclusion Our study identifies a high burden of work-related morbidity among software professionals. It is essential to adopt a pro-active, multi-disciplinary approach with focus on social and occupational factors in prevention of work-related morbidity.

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has reemphasized the criticality of human behaviors and led to an enormous focus on health promotion and risk communication messaging; ‘COVID appropriate behavior’ is indeed a household term now. Dedicated or specialist health promotion professionals and scholars are few and far between and the author, Professor Madhumita Dobe, is both a pioneer and icon to generations of public health students and researchers. She has authored this book, filling up a much-needed void in this discipline. As she has acknowledged, this book is the culmination of a lifetime of teaching, research and practice at the All India Institute of Hygiene and Public Health, Kolkata and her rich experience across the states of India and several countries.

Medical education in India is based predominantly on hospital environments and specialist services covering a narrow spectrum of health problems, with especially dependent on technology. A significant reorientation is needed in medical education, to allow students to understand people in their social contexts in a more holistic way, rather than seeing them merely as parts of a biological machine.1 National Medical Commission (NMC) in their recent notification included Family Adoption Program (FAP) in the undergraduate curriculum to provide a learning opportunity towards community-based health care to Indian Medical Graduates.2 The NMC documented its vision as “to provide for medical education system that improves access to quality and affordable medical education, ensures availability of adequate and high-quality medical professionals in all parts of the country; that promotes equitable and universal health care that encourages community health perspective and makes services of medical professionals accessible to all citizens; that promotes national health goal.”

Indian Public Health Standards (IPHS) provides standards and guidance quality health rendered by public health system components such as infrastructure, human resource, drugs, diagnostics, equipment, quality and governance requirements for delivering health services at health facilities at all levels. Setting up a protocol at all health care levels is a dynamic process and needs to update with the introduction of new and existing National Health Programmes as per the epidemiological shift of diseases in the country. The Indian Public Health Standards (IPHS) for Sub-centre and Health and Wellness-Sub centre provide a guidance on essential package of services that are to be delivered at Health and Wellness-SC level, the population norms for its establishment, infrastructure, human resource, drugs & diagnostics, equipment & supplies and quality care assurance.

This book review of "Urban Health: -Emerging Public Health Perspectives", is compiled and edited by Dr Edmond Fernandes and Dr Indu Grewal, published by Global South Strategies in 2021

Problem statement: Less than half of Indian infants aged 6-9 months receive some kind of complementary foods in addition to mother’s milk and only 1 child in 10, between 6-24 months is fed optimally, i.e. fed as per the recommended practices.
 Objective: To assess and compare the complimentary feeding practices amongst tribal and non-tribal population of Assam.
 Methods: A community based cross-sectional observation study. A total of 300 mothers from ‘Tribal and Non-Tribal’ were interviewed using WHO recommended study tools. Data analysis was done using SPSS Version 20. Chi-square test was done to see association between two variables. Binary logistic regression was done to find odds ratio. p<0.05 were considered statistically significant.
 Results: Response rate was 93% (560/600). Mean age of initiation of complementary feeding was 7 months. Delay in initiation of complementary was seen more in non-tribal population than tribal population (64.1% vs 57.9%). Early initiation of breastfeeding was overall 79.3% (81.1% tribal vs 77.3% non-tribal). Colostrum was given in majority (44.6% tribal vs 44.5% non-tribal) which was found to be significantly different (p= 0.001). Normal weight was significantly higher in tribal than non-tribal community (90.5% vs 81.1%) (p=0.003).
 Conclusion: Health education and demonstration of complementary diet with locally available homemade ingredients may increase care giver’s knowledge and enhance complementary feeding practices.
 Keywords: Complimentary feeding practices, Tribal population, non-tribal population, Assam, Young infant and child feeding (IYCF) practices.