Grand Challenges: Integrating Maternal Mental Health into Maternal and Child Health Programmes
by Jai K DasIntegrating maternal mental health care will help advance maternal and child health (MCH) status. This paper is the second in a series of five articles providing a global perspective on integrating mental health.
Malnutrition still remains one of the major public health challenges, particularly in developing countries. Major risk factors for undernutrition such as suboptimal breastfeeding and micronutrient deficiencies (vitamin A and zinc) are responsible for more than one-third of all under five child deaths and 11% of the global total disease burden. Several strategies have been employed to supplement micronutrients. These include education, dietary modification, food provision, supplementation and fortification either alone or in combination.
Maternal and child undernutrition Series was launched in The Lancet in 2008. Five years after the initial series, the issue was re-evaluated including the growing problems of overweight and obesity for women and children, and their consequences in low-income and middle-income countries. Many of these countries are said to have the double burden of malnutrition: continued stunting of growth and deficiencies of essential nutrients along with the emerging issue of obesity. The national progress in nutrition programmes and international efforts toward previous recommendations were also evaluated
The Lancet publishes a special themed issue to coincide with the third Women Deliver conference in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia on May 28–30, 2013. Women Deliver brings together voices from around the world to generate political commitment and resource investments to improve the health and well-being of girls and women and achieve universal access to reproductive health. The studies published in The Lancet's themed issue use different methods to show the multidimensional nature of reproductive health and the influence of social determinants and health systems.
IV Therapy
by EditorPedagogy is a US provider of Continuing Education for Nurses. They have produced posters that can be downloaded, showing recent guidlines in the management of Intra Venous therapy.
Measuring Coverage in MNCH: Challenges in Monitoring the Proportion of Young Children with Pneumonia Who Receive Antibiotic Treatment
by Jai K DasPneumonia remains a major cause of child death globally, and improving antibiotic treatment rates is a key control strategy. The third paper in the PLOS series of 'Measuring Coverage in MNCH', the authors show that the performance of survey tools could be improved by increasing the survey recall period or by improving either overall discriminative power or specificity.
The PLOS Medicine “Measuring Coverage in MNCH” Collection of research studies and reviews presents systematic assessments of the validity of health intervention coverage measurement based on household surveys, the primary method for estimating population-level intervention coverage in low- and middle-income countries. This is the second paper of the collection. It focuses on the development of the indicators and standard measurement tools that are needed to measure coverage of key newborn interventions.
Measuring Coverage in MNCH: New Findings, New Strategies, and Recommendations for Action
by Jai K DasThe PLOS Medicine “Measuring Coverage in MNCH” Collection of research studies and reviews presents systematic assessments of the validity of health intervention coverage measurement based on household surveys, the primary method for estimating population-level intervention coverage in low- and middle-income countries. This is the first paper of the collection
Grand Challenges: Integrating Maternal Mental Health into Maternal and Child Health Programmes
by Jai K DasIntegrating maternal mental health care will help advance maternal and child health (MCH) status. This paper is the second in a series of five articles providing a global perspective on integrating mental health.
Is It Time to Screen Women with History of Hypertensive Pregnancy Disorders for Diabetes?
by Jai K Dase have recently added a Canadian cohort study from PLOS Medicine providing valuable new evidence on preeclampsia (PEC) and the impetus for discussing whether it is now time to consider screening women with a history of hypertensive pregnancy disorders. This paper discusses the feasibility of systematic screening of women with a history of Hypertensive Pregnancyand its mangement.
Decline in Diarrhea Mortality and Admissions after Routine Childhood Rotavirus Immunization in Brazil: A Time-Series Analysis
by Jai K DasIn 2006, Brazil began routine immunization of infants <15 wk of age with a single-strain rotavirus vaccine. The authors in this paper evaluated whether the rotavirus vaccination program was associated with declines in childhood diarrhea deaths and hospital admissions by monitoring disease trends before and after vaccine introduction in all five regions of Brazil with varying disease burden and distinct socioeconomic and health indicators.
Women with preeclampsia (PEC) and gestational hypertension (GH) exhibit insulin resistance during pregnancy, independent of obesity and glucose intolerance. The authors in this paper aim to determine whether women with PEC or GH during pregnancy have an increased risk of developing diabetes after pregnancy, and whether the presence of PEC/GH in addition to gestational diabetes (GDM) increases the risk of future (postpartum) diabetes.
The Lancet Series on Childhood Pneumonia and Diarrhoea, led by Aga Khan University, Pakistan, provides evidence for integrated control efforts for childhood pneumonia and diarrhoea.The series of four papers assesses the global burden of these two illnesses and identifies a set of highly cost-effective interventions that can prevent most diarrhoea deaths and nearly two thirds of pneumonia deaths by 2025, if delivered at scale. It also highlights the findings from consultations with several hundred frontline workers in high-burden countries and explores the barriers and enablers they face in dealing with these two diseases and potential ways forward. The final paper represents a call to action and discusses the global and country-level remedies needed to eliminate preventable deaths from these illnesses by 2025.
Despite published guidance on writing the abstract in the PRISMA Statement guiding the reporting of systematic reviews in general and elsewhere, evaluations show that reporting of systematic reviews in journal and conference abstracts is poor. Teh authors developed consensus-based reporting guidelines as an extension to the PRISMA Statement on good reporting of systematic reviews and meta-analyses in abstracts.
Interventions for promoting reintegration and reducing harmful behaviour and lifestyles in street-connected children and young peopleNumbers of street-connected children and young people run into many
by Jai K DasThis systematic review summarises the effectiveness of interventions for street-connected children and young people that promote inclusion and reintegration and reduce harms. It also explores the processes of successful intervention and models of change in this area, and to understand how intervention effectiveness may vary in different contexts.
Young Children's Probability of Dying Before and After Their Mother's Death: A Rural South African Population-Based Surveillance Study
by Jai K DasThere is evidence that a young child's risk of dying increases following the mother's death, but little is known about the risk when the mother becomes very ill prior to her death. We hypothesized that children would be more likely to die during the period several months before their mother's death, as well as for several months after her death. Therefore the authors in this paper investigated the relationship between young children's likelihood of dying and the timing of their mother's death and, in particular, the existence of a critical period of increased risk.
In this article, the authors illustrate five basic statistical concepts that can significantly impact the interpretation of the medical literature and its application to the care of patients, drawing examples from the vaccine literature: (i) consider clinical and statistical significance separately, (ii) evaluate absolute risks rather than relative risks, (iii) examine confidence intervals rather than p values, (iv) use caution when considering isolated significant p values in the setting of multiple testing, and (v) keep in mind that statistically nonsignificant results may not exclude clinically important benefits or harms.
There have been significant improvements in the performance of the Expanded Programme on Immunization (EPI) in Africa since its inception in 1974. However, there exist wide inter- and intra-country differences.