Background: Immunization is one of the most successful public health interventions available, saving millions of lives from death and disability each year. Therefore, improving immunization coverage is a high priority for the Government of Pakistan and essential to progress toward universal health coverage. This survey reports the national and provincial/regional coverage and determinants of fully, partially, and not-vaccinated children 12–23 months of age, antigen-wise coverage, percentage of home-based vaccination records (HBR) retention, and reasons for nonretention; dropout, timeliness, and prevalence of missed opportunities for simultaneous vaccination (MOSV). Methods: The survey was a descriptive cross-sectional national household survey carried out across Pakistan. The survey included 110,790 children 12–23 months old and their caregivers. A World Health Organization (WHO)—Expanded Program on Immunization (EPI) Survey questionnaire was adapted to collect information. Data were analyzed using the WHO Vaccination Coverage Quality Indicators (VCQI) software and Stata version 17. Results: Nationally excluding Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) and Gilgit Baltistan (GB), the coverage of fully vaccinated children was 76.5%. The likelihood of being fully vaccinated was higher among children of educated parents who belonged to higher wealth quintiles and resided in any province/region other than Balochistan. The main reasons for unimmunization were no faith in immunization, rumors about vaccines, and distance to the facility. About two-thirds (66.2%) of the children had their HBR available, and the main reasons for not having a card were never visiting a health facility and having no awareness about the importance of a card. Dropout was discernible for later doses of vaccines compared with earlier ones. Higher proportions of children received the last doses late by more than two months. Of the 218,002 vaccination visits documented on HBR in the provinces, MOSVs occurred in 17.6% of the visits. Conclusion: The immunization coverage rates provide a direction to strategize the progress to improve the vaccination rates in Pakistan. The country needs to outline the immediate and long-term actions to combat vaccine-preventable diseases, such as escalating integrated immunization campaigns and outreach activities, provision of mobility support, and deploying behavioral interventions as a cross-cutting strategy to improve awareness and reduce misconceptions.

Background Recent surveys, studies and reviews in urban areas of Pakistan have highlighted the impacts of social inequities on access of women and children to health services for women and children in Pakistan. Objectives The Urban Slum Profiles and coverage surveys were conducted between 2017 and 2019. The objective of the profiles was to obtain an updated listing of slums and other underserved areas, and to better understand current vaccination and health service coverage in these areas. Utilising findings from these studies, this paper aims to better understand the gender and social determinants of health that are giving rise to health inequalities in the slums. Methods The Urban Slum Profiles adopted a mixed methods approach combining both qualitative and quantitative methods. The study was comprised of two main survey approaches of Urban Slum Profiles and Immunisation Coverage Survey in 4431 urban poor areas of the 10 most highly populated cities of Pakistan. Results Findings are classified into six analytic categories of (1) access to health services, (2) female workforce participation, (3) gender-friendly health services, (4) access to schools and literacy, (5) social connections, and (6) autonomy of decision making. Out of a national sample of 14,531 children in urban poor areas of 10 cities, the studies found that just over half of the children are fully immunised (54%) and 14% of children had received zero doses of vaccine. There are large shortages of health facilities and female health workforce in the slums, with significant gaps in the quality of health infrastructure, which all serve to limit both demand for, and supply of, health services for women and children. Results demonstrate low availability of schools, low levels of female literacy and autonomy over decision making, limited knowledge of the benefits of vaccination, and few social connections outside the home. All these factors interact and reinforce existing gender norms and low levels of health literacy and service access. Conclusion The Urban Slum profiles and coverage studies provide an opportunity to introduce gender transformative strategies that include expansion of a female health workforce, development of costed urban health action plans, and an enabling policy environment to support community organisation and more equitable health service delivery access.

The quality of teaching and learning improvement lies in its effectiveness that promotes teachers' teaching styles and its alignment with the pupils' learning styles has a vital impact in teaching-learning process at the university level. The current study explored the teachers' preferred teaching styles with pupils' learning performance in public sector universities in Punjab province. The population was all public sector universities students currently enrolled in the year 2019 to onward. The sample comprised three hundred students studying in different semesters at GC University Faisalabad and University of Education Faisalabad Campus. The researchers used an adapted instrument, "Grasha-Riechmann Teaching-Styles Inventory," with an Alpha reliability value (.931). The Data analysis was made were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics. The findings revealed that male teachers had used teaching styles more confidently than those female teachers. It was concluded that male pupils have higher learning performance than of female students. The researchers suggested that teachers should prepare a variety of teaching styles in developing and utilizing effective learning among students to improve the classroom learning environment.

Background: Recent surveys, studies and reviews have highlighted the impacts of social inequities on access of women and children to health services for women and children in Pakistan. Utilising mixed methods for urban slum profiles, and facility and coverage surveys in 4431 urban poor areas of the top 10 highly populated cities of Pakistan, this paper describes and analyses the complex interactions between economic, social and gender determinants of health care access and considers health policy and program options for addressing them. Results: Findings are classified into six analytic categories of (1) access to health services, (2) female workforce participation, (3) gender friendly health services, (4) access to schools and literacy, (5) social connections, and (6) autonomy of decision making. Out of a national sample of 14,531 children in urban poor areas of 10 cities, the studies found that just over half of the children are fully immunised (54%) and 14% of children had received zero doses of vaccine. There are large shortages of health facilities and female health workforce in the slums, with significant gaps in the quality of health infrastructure, which all serve to limit both demand for, and supply of, health services for women and children. Results demonstrate low availability of schools, low levels of female literacy and autonomy over decision making, limited knowledge of the benefits of vaccination, and few social connections outside the home. All these factors interact and reinforce existing gender norms and low levels of health literacy and service access. Conclusion: The Urban Slum profiles and coverage studies provide an opportunity to introduce gender transformative strategies that include expansion of a female health workforce, development of costed urban health action plans, and an enabling policy environment to support community organisation and more equitable health service delivery access.