Background:In general students who get into health sciences experience transition from home and family care to university and hostel life, which in turn exerts lot of stress which affects their dietary pattern. Many life style factors and poor eating habits acquired during this period can lead to serious diseases later in life.Methods:The present study was a questionnaire based cross-sectional study conducted to find out the dietary pattern among the students of health sciences and to know their health and morbidity status.Results:The study included 175 students of Nitte University with 93 Medical, 49 Dental, 33 nursing students. 75% of students who ate outside almost daily had stomach upsets regularly and it was much less (46.8%) among those who had a frequency of not more than once a week. It was seen that 87 (49.71%) students skipped breakfast, 14 (8%) students skipped lunch, 14 (8%) students skipped dinner. 5.7% of subjects were underweight, 85.2% of subjects had a normal BMI and 9.1% were overweight.Conclusions:Hereby we recommend that a nutritional health education intervention aimed at improving the dietary habits of students is the need of the hour.

Introduction and Aim: Diarrhea is a significant public health problem, resulting in nearly 16% of child deaths below the age of five, globally. This study was undertaken to find the relation between geographical variance in diarrheal prevalence and spatial dependence among under-five children of Karkala taluk of Karnataka State, India, between 2015 to 2018.   Materials and Methods: Data on registered diarrheal cases among under-five children between April 2015 and March 2018was obtained from the State Department of Health and Family Welfare. The thematic maps were prepared for the study area using data available at the village level. The GeoDa software was used to carry out spatial data analysis and spatial autocorrelation. Spatial dependence was analyzed through the Global Moran's Index and Local Indicators of Spatial Association (LISA).   Results: Three thousand eight hundred ninety-four under-five children were recorded with diarrhea in Karkala taluk with a mean annual rate of 123.6/1000 diarrheal cases. There was an increase in diarrheal incidence during the study period with peak trends being seasonal. Global and Local spatial correlation analysis detected several hot and cold spot clusters among villages in Karkala taluk.   Conclusion: Diarrheal incidence among under-five children is highly seasonal and spatially clustered. The spatial analysis helps decide preventive measures for identified clusters and determines the observed heterogeneity of diarrheal infection.

Introduction: Globally, India tops by contributing the maximum number of diarrhoeal fatality. Forecasting the path and spread of diarrhoeal disease is critical due to its multifactorial cause, which needs robust spatial analysis and experiential investigations of communicable disease. Aim: To investigate purely spatial, purely temporal, and spacetime clusters of diarrhoea among under-five children using a Geographic Information System (GIS) in Karkala taluk of the Udupi district of Karnataka, India. Materials and Methods: A retrospective longitudinal study was conducted involving all the primary health centres of Karkala taluk by the investigators, from the Department of Public Health, K S Hegde Medical Academy, Nitte (DU), Mangalore, Karnataka, India. The data on diarrhoea among under-five children was collected for three years, i.e., from 1st April 2015 to 31st March 2018, at the Udupi district health office. A total of 49 village data were obtained, and 3894 under-five childhood diarrhoea were reported during the study period. The annual incidence of childhood diarrhoea at the taluk level was calculated using excel. The spatial, temporal and space-time diarrhoeal clusters were identified using Kulldorff SaTScan software. Geographic Information System, QGIS 3.20.2 software was used to plot the maps. Results: The analysis of the spatial cluster using SaTScan software for three years in the study area identified eight highrisk areas (p-value<0.0001), covering 17 villages. The most likely spatiotemporal cluster region was located at the northern Karkala, and the most-at-risk period was 1st April 2016 to 30th September 2017 {Log Likelihood Ratio (LLR) =114.67 and p-value <0.00001}. The analysis of purely temporal cluster showed that one most likely cluster happened in all villages (LLR= 73.89, p-value <0.001) from 1st April 2017 to 3rd March 2018. Conclusion: The diarrhoea among under-five children at Karkala taluk was not randomly distributed over space and time.

Background: Cardiovascular disease (CVD), one of the non-communicable diseases, has become a major public health problem and it is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality in both developing and developed countries. The important CVD risk factors are obesity, hypertension, diabetes, hyperlipidaemia, unhealthy diet, physical inactivity and tobacco use. Cardiovascular risk approach is feasible and cost-effective tool, which helps to identify those at high risk for developing CVDs, so that immediate preventive measures or action can be taken to reduce the risk. Objectives: estimate the ten-year risk of developing cardiovascular disease using Framingham heart risk assessment score. Materials and Methods: A community-based, cross-sectional study was conducted among adults residing in a rural area of Dakshina Kannada District for a period of 6 months from July 2013 to December 2013. The data was collected using pretested semi structured questionnaire through interview methods. Anthropometric measurement and blood investigation (fasting blood sugar and lipid profile) was done. The Framingham Risk Score is a gender-specific algorithm used to estimate the 10-year cardiovascular risk of an individual Results: Among 712 study participants, 95 (13.3%) and 20 (2.8%) participants had intermediate and high risk of developing cardiovascular disease in 10 years respectively. The proportion of intermediate CVD risk prediction and high-risk predication was more in males as compared to females. Conclusion: The cardiovascular risk factors like obesity, physical inactivity, diabetes and hypertension are widely prevalent among adults in rural areas. The high-risk prediction for developing CVD among study participants in next 10 years was 2.8%. Keywords: Cardiovascular risk factors, Framingham risk score, 10 years CVD risk prediction, Prevalence

Nutritional status is one of the important factors that indicate children's proper development and growth. The geospatial analytic approach is useful in describing and analyzing the characteristics, depth, and coverage of the malnutrition burden among under-five children. This current scoping review was performed to systematically map the spatial analytical techniques and approaches applied in nutrition among under-five children. An organized online database search was conducted to identify articles published between 1995 and 2021 on under-five nutrition and spatial statistic in PubMed, Science Direct, Scopus, and Web of Science. A total of 80 distinct articles were identified, of which 34 articles were used for the final review. A spatial statistical correlation was mainly used (n = 15), followed by Bayesian spatial modelling (n = 7), Global Moran's technique (n = 9), and Getis-Ord (n = 3). Nine studies in India concerning spatial analysis and undernutrition were conducted based on a national-level demographic health survey. There is a need for future spatial studies related to nutrition and under-five children at the sub-national level in India.