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In developing countries, where work is being increasingly mechanised, a number of work processes have been developed that treat workers as tools in production, putting their health and lives at risk. Hence the current study was done to identify the morbidity pattern among stainless steel industry workers and to determine the relationship between morbidities and other associated factors related to work.A cross sectional study was conducted in a small scale stainless steel industry of Tamil Nadu. 143 industrial workers were selected by using universal sampling method. Workers with experience of not less than 1 year were automatically included in the study and those with pre-existing illness before joining the industry were excluded. A structured questionnaire was used to collect the data from study participants. It was estimated that nearly 15.4% of employees had work experience of more than a year and 84.6% had experience of more than 2 years. Overall prevalence of morbidity pattern in employees as per this study was 95.1%. Most common morbidity among workers was myalgia (50.3%) and second commonest was mechanical injuries (49%). The association between nature of work and morbidity suggested that 59% employees working in powdering, polishing section had history of mechanical injuries and 38.2% of employees in powdering, polishing section developed hearing loss. Among the employees not using PPE, 15.2% of them developed bronchial asthma, 29.3% had hearing loss, 21.2% had skin manifestation and 42.4% had mechanical injuries, these associations were found to be statistically significant.

Background: Educational environment is one of the main determinants of student learning, especially in a student-centered curriculum. This study was undertaken as a mid-program evaluation of the educational environment of a new medical program-USM-KLE International Medical Programme (USM-KLE IMP), which is an offshore campus of Universiti Sains Malaysia. The program follows an innovative, integrated, curriculum having Problem Based Learning as prescribed by the Malaysian university, and commenced in 2010. Methods: Towards the end of the academic year 2012-13, the Dundee Ready Education Environment Measure (DREEM) inventory was administered to the undergraduate medical students of all three years. Results: Out of 186 students, 177 (95%) responded, 33.33% (n=59) were males and 66.66% (n=118) females. The mean scores in the domains of students' perceptions of learning, perceptions of teachers, academic self-perceptions, perceptions of atmosphere, social self-perceptions and total mean DREEM scores were 33.2 (Maximum 48), 29.6 (Maximum 44), 21.9 (Maximum 32), 34.1(Maximum 48), 18.1(Maximum 28) and 137(Maximum 200), respectively. The highest score was for the item "the faculty are knowledgeable" with a mean score of 3.44±0.64. Twelve items had scores of more than 3.0, and three items had scores below 2.0. Conclusion: The results of the study indicate that the perception of USM-KLE IMP students towards their educational and learning environment is "more positive than negative" and that the program is moving in the right direction.

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Background: The whole world became still, when a major pandemic COVID-19 started its toll across all developed and developing countries. It has caused both physical and emotional disturbances among all age groups. This study was done to evaluate the parental mental health in COVID-19 as this group is not given much importance. The major mental health problems associated with COVID-19 among parents are due to online classes which has caused depression, anxiety and stress.Methods: A cross-sectional study done among all parents, especially those of whose children are attending online class were included in the study. Convenient sampling was used to select 204 participants, GHQ 12 questionnaire was used for data collection on mental health status among parents.Results: Overall prevalence of parents with better mental health <19 was 108 (52.9%) and prevalence of parents with poor mental health >19 was 96 (47.1%).Conclusions: This study concluded that parental age of 31 to 40 years who are employed and have children studying in primary school to have a poor mental health status. The most important contributing factors for poor parental health were online classes for children and work place stress.