Background: Learning community medicine helps the student not only to become a good clinician but also a good manager, educator and a researcher. Community medicine exposes medical students to primary and secondary healthcare settings and to promotive, preventive, curative and rehabilitative health services. This helps them to serve the needy people with a holistic approach. The objective is to find the perceptions of medical students regarding Community Medicine as a Medical Subject and as a career preference. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted over a period of 2 months. It was conducted on 200 students of Final year part I of MBBS in a tertiary care hospital by using universal sampling method. Data was collected from all the students using a self-administered pre-tested questionnaire using Likert’s scale. Results: Total 212 students participated in this study out of which 125 were boys and 87 were girls. The perceptions of students about community medicine were that this field gives an overall view of community’s medical needs. Curriculum is too vast and needs to be modified. More research should be done in community. Teaching methodology should be modified for making topics interesting. More number of girls was interested in taking community medicine as a career. Conclusions: Students perceptions regarding the field of community medicine showed that community medicine is essential for successful medical practice. But the teachers must make this subject more interesting by giving more practical insight and improving the teaching modalities.

Background: There are genuine reasons why rag pickers are considered one of the worst form of labour. The risk related to rag pickers’ health and physical development, as well as the hindrance these work places have on their education and psychological development; make rag picking a particularly adverse occupation for women and children. The objectives of the study were to explore the health profile and to identify the factors affecting the health seeking behaviours of women rag pickers. Methods: This study was done with the help of NGO working for women rag pickers. 120 rag pickers were participated in the study during study period (Jan 2012 to July 2012). Results: Almost all rag pickers were having some or other type of physical or mental ailments in minor or major form. It is seen that ignorance about health and disease is because of illiteracy, lower socioeconomic condition, unavailability of good health care facility nearby to their locality, difficulty in getting time to visit nearest health care facility from their 10-12 hours of duty etc. Conclusions: It was found that these rag pickers prefers to visit private clinics as they are open in evening time and most of the time were affordable for minor ailments.

Background: Accredited social health activist (ASHA) is a key link to public health services in villages in India. ASHA plays an important role at the grass root level by motivating people to utilize the health services. Unless ASHAs are healthy, it will be difficult for them to work for the benefit of the community. They play an essential role in the health-care system; yet, little is known about what ASHAs do to stay healthy. Hence, this study was done to find the health-seeking behavior of the ASHAs. Objective: To assess the sociodemographic, socioeconomic profile, and health-seeking behavior of the ASHAs and their families. Materials and Methods: It is a cross-sectional study on ASHAs working in the rural areas of Sakwar, Khadavli, and Pise-Padgha. All the ASHAs working in the rural areas of Sakwar, Khadavli, and Pise-Padgha were given a printed questionnaire to answer with prior consent taken. A total of 110 ASHAs were included in the study. Result: All the ASHAs had experienced some illness in last 1 year, of which upper respiratory tract infection (URTI) was the most common morbidity. About 51.57% of ASHAs had experienced URTI. About 33.60% used homemade remedies, 79.46% went to primary health center for the treatment if not cured at home, and 65.15% of ASHAs decided their own mode of treatment. Conclusion: The ASHAs showed a positive health-seeking behavior, wherein they mostly preferred the private hospital for chronic illnesses.

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