Background In Indian subcontinent, Master's level public health (MPH) programmes attract graduates of diverse academic disciplines from health and non-health sciences alike. Considering the current and futuristic importance of the public health cadre, we described them and reviewed their transdisciplinarity status based on MPH admissibility criteria 1995 to 2021. Methods Using a search strategy, we abstracted information available in the public domain on MPH and their admissibility criteria. We classified disciplines specified for admission into Science, Social sciences and Arts, Health and Non-health categories. We described the MPH programmes by location, type of institutions, course duration, pedagogical methods, specialisations offered, and nature of admission criteria statements. We calculated descriptive statistics for eligible educational qualifications for admission to MPH programmes. Results Overall, 74 Indian institutions offered 88 MPH programmes. We included 85 for review. These programmes represent 50% increase (n = 44) from that of 2016-17. They are mostly concentrated in 21 provinces and union territories of India. These programmes stated that they admit candidates of but not limited to "graduation in any life sciences", "three-year bachelors degree in any discipline", “graduation from any Indian universities”, and "graduation in any discipline". Of the 72 institutions, 14 admit multidisciplinary academic graduates in their 16 programmes. Except three institutions from public sector, 69 provide MPH admission opportunities to multidisciplinary health and non-health academic graduates. Conclusion Our review suggests that India's MPH programmes are less transdisciplinary. India's Master's level public health programmes should transcend to be more inclusive and admit graduates of various academic educational backgrounds.

Introduction In the Indian subcontinent, Master’s-level Public Health (MlPH) programmes attract graduates of diverse academic disciplines from health and non-health sciences alike. Considering the current and futuristic importance of the public health cadre, we described them and reviewed their transdisciplinarity status based on MlPH admissibility criteria 1995 to 2021. Methods Using a search strategy, we abstracted information available in the public domain on MlPH programmes and their admissibility criteria. We categorized the admission criteria based on specified disciplines into Health science, Non-health science and Non-health non-science categories. We described the MlPH programmes by location, type of institution, course duration, curriculum, pedagogical methods, specializations offered, and nature of admission criteria statements. We calculated descriptive statistics for eligible educational qualifications for MlPH admission. Results Overall, 76 Indian institutions (Medical colleges—21 and Non-medical coleges—55) offered 92 MlPH programmes (Private—58 and Public—34). We included 89 for review. These programmes represent a 51% increase (n = 47) from 2016 to 2021. They are mostly concentrated in 21 Indian provinces. These programmes stated that they admit candidates of but not limited to “graduation in any life sciences”, “3-year bachelor’s degree in any discipline”, “graduation from any Indian universities”, and “graduation in any discipline”. Among the health science disciplines, Modern medicine (n = 89; 100%), Occupational therapy (n = 57; 64%) is the least eligible. Among the non-health science disciplines, life sciences and behavioural sciences (n = 53; 59%) and non-health non-science disciplines, humanities and social sciences (n = 62; 72%) are the topmost eligible disciplines for admission in the MPH programmes. Conclusion Our review suggests that India’s MlPH programmes are less transdisciplinary. Relatively, non-medical institutions offer admission to various academic disciplines than the medical institutions in their MlPH programmes. India’s Master’s level public health programmes could be more inclusive by opening to graduates from trans-disciplinary backgrounds.

BackgroundIn Indian subcontinent, Master's level public health (MPH) programmes attract graduates of diverse academic disciplines from health and non-health sciences alike. Considering the current and futuristic importance of the public health cadre, we described them and reviewed their transdisciplinarity status based on MPH admissibility criteria 1995 to 2021. MethodsUsing a search strategy, we abstracted information available in the public domain on MPH and their admissibility criteria. We classified disciplines specified for admission into Science, Social sciences and Arts, Health and Non-health categories. We described the MPH programmes by location, type of institutions, course duration, pedagogical methods, specialisations offered, and nature of admission criteria statements. We calculated descriptive statistics for eligible educational qualifications for admission to MPH programmes. ResultsOverall, 74 Indian institutions offered 88 MPH programmes. We included 85 for review. These programmes represent 50% increase (n=44) from that of 2016-17. They are mostly concentrated in 21 provinces and union territories of India. These programmes stated that they admit candidates of but not limited to "graduation in any life sciences", "three-year bachelors degree in any discipline", “graduation from any Indian universities”, and "graduation in any discipline". Of the 72 institutions, 14 admit multidisciplinary academic graduates in their 16 programmes. Except three institutions from public sector, 69 provide MPH admission opportunities to multidisciplinary health and non-health academic graduates. ConclusionOur review suggests that India's MPH programmes are less transdisciplinary. India's Master's level public health programmes should transcend to be more inclusive and admit graduates of various academic educational backgrounds.

Background: Bibliometric studies help in quantifying the pattern of research published in a particular area of interest to get the measure of research productivity. In this context, we analyzed the dental and COVID-19 research papers published from December 2019 to January 2021 globally. Method: The articles were retrieved from the PubMed and WHO COVID -19 databases using MeSH terms and keywords. The data downloaded as excel and extracted bibliometric information’s and analyzed using Epi-info (7.2) software. Result: We obtained 800 research articles after removing duplicates and non-relevant articles from 1,823 articles from these two databases. The articles were published by 475 institutions in 62 countries. Among the listed countries, more publications were done by the United States of America (USA) (n=135;16.8%). The majority of the papers were published in June 2020 (n=114). The King's College London had the most number of publications (n=15; 1.9%). The majority of the articles were original articles (n=592; 74%). Conclusion: The study reports a gradual increase in publications over the months and a slowing down at the end of the year. The countries such as the USA, England, Italy, and China published more articles and this correlates with the number of covid-19 cases.