Background: Every year, OOP spending pushes 3.5% to 6.2% of the India's population below poverty line. So there is a need to determine whether this is due to lack of awareness on part of the public. Objectives: To assess the awareness about health insurance among a selected urban population of Puducherry and to explore the individual preferences regarding health insurance and their utilization pattern. Methodology: A Cross Sectional Study was conducted in urban field practicing area of institution. The houses were chosen by Systemic Random Sampling technique. The sample size was 234. The study was carried out for a period of 3 months. A semi-structured, pretested questionnaire was used as data collection tool. Results: The mean age of the participants was 43.9 ± 13.87 years with majority being in the age group of 20 -40 years (50.4%). About53.8% were aware about the health insurance whereas their willingness to obtain Health insurance accounts only for 28.6%. There was a significant association (p<0.05) between the level of education, family type and awareness of the participants and between willingness and socio economic status. 95.5% of the participants have a desire to enrol in government schemes. Nearly half of them (56.7%) wanted to pay yearly. 41.8% of the participants are willing to purchase individual health insurance policy. Conclusion: Even though half of the respondents are aware of health insurance, they are not utilizing the same. Media seemed to have played an important role in dissemination of information. There was a significant association between type of Family, Educational status and awareness about Health Insurance. Also, the expense spend by participants who are having HI is also significantly less than the participant without HI. Hence there is need to launch information, education and communication activities in order to make aware of various Government and Private HI schemes.

Background: Postmenopausal women are the most vulnerable group affected due to physiological changes. The quality of life during the menopause is assessed by the frequency and severity of menopausal symptoms. Objectives: To assess the menopause symptoms and quality of life among post-menopause women in rural Puducherry and study the sociodemographic factors associated with menopausal symptoms and quality of life. Methods: A cross sectional study was conducted in rural field practicing area of a medical college. 133 postmenopausal women were selected from 3 villages by Simple random sampling. Socio-demographic details and menopausal symptoms using modified MENQOL questionnaire was elicited. Body mapping was done by the participants. Results: The mean age was 51±2 years. About 32% of them were suffering from any one of the chronic diseases like Diabetes, Hypertension. Joint pain (79.2%) was found to have higher prevalence and reduced sexual desire (2.3%) as lower prevalence. Overall, sixty four study population had no menopausal symptoms followed by 35 with mild, 20 had moderate menopausal symptoms. Significant association was seen between age of menopause and the severity of the menopausal symptoms in vasomotor and psychosocial domains. Positive correlations were seen among the domains. Majority (65%) of the women perceived pain any of the parts in body mapping which affects their day to day life. Conclusion: The Quality of life (QOL) of the postmenopausal women was poor based on the presence of symptoms in many domains.

Background: Adolescence is the age where the influence of marketing world is high and choice of right food and exercise becomes hurdled. The World Health Organization alarm on increasing NCDs among adolescents ratifies the need for appropriate intervention at this age group. The objective of the study was to find out the association between diet and physical activity with body mass index (BMI) among dental students in Puducherry.Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted in October 2016 among 85 dental students of Sri Venkateshwaraa Dental College, Puducherry. A self administered semi structured questionnaire was used to collect information about diet and physical activity. Height and weight were measured for all participants to compute BMI.Results: The mean age of the study participants was 19.32 ± 0.6 yrs. Majority of them were females (76.5%). About 33% of students had normal BMI. Junk food consumption was 91.8% and 65% had habit of skipping meals. Only 38% of the students were doing regular physical activity. A significant association between calorie and protein intake with BMI categories viz: underweight, normal, overweight and obesity was observed (p<0.001). There was a significant association (OR=18.4, 95%CI-6.1, 54.6) between excess calorie intake and BMI but not between physical activity and BMI (OR=1.2, 95% CI-0.5, 3).Conclusions: Improper dietary habits including high calorie/protein intake was associated with increased BMI among the dental students. The role of regular physical activity alone as a single factor influencing variations in BMI among the students could not be established in the study.

Background: Biomedical waste has become a crucial health hazard in many countries including India. Careless and indiscriminate disposal of these wastes can contribute to the spread of serious diseases. The new guideline of Bio-Medical Waste Management Rules -2016 was released on March, 2016 and revised in 2018. In order to update the new rules periodically, the present study was carried out with the aim to assess the knowledge, attitude and practice on biomedical waste management among health care workers working in a tertiary hospital in Puducherry and to evaluate the effectiveness of sensitisation program regarding 2016 Bio-medical waste management rules. Methods: All staff nurses and nursing assistants working at SVMCH & RC, Puducherry were included. Study period was between August and October 2016. About 103 willing participants were included.The participants were assessed by pre-test and post-test with a semi-structured questionnaire. Dataanalysed using SPSS (version 23).Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to compare pre-test and post-test score. Chi-square and Fisher’s exact tests were applied to find the significant difference before and after intervention. Results:Among total participants (103), 83.5% of the participants were Staff Nurses, 10.7% Female Nursing Assistant and rest Auxiliary Nursing Mid-wife. About 68 % of them have reported that it is the sole responsibility of the Government in proper management of Bio-medical waste and 27.2% of them reported that procedures involved in Bio-Medical Waste Management (BMWM) are increasing the financial burden of their hospital.Regarding identification of the symbol of bio-hazard, there was a significant increase in knowledge in the post-test when compared to the pre-test. About 40.8% (42) of participants had poor knowledge about BMW in pre test. Regarding attitude and practice, in the pre-test, around 59% have said that they will report about any injury due to or during wrong disposal whereas in the post-test it has been increased to 78% which is statistically significant (p<0.05). About 89.3% of the participants reported that they are having the practice of wearing gloves while handling BMW in pre-test whereas in the post-test, 94.2% has reported. Overall mean and standard deviation of pre-test and post-test scores regarding BMW shows a statistically significant improvement in KAP score regarding biomedical waste management and new rules in the post-test after interventionthan the pre-test. Conclusions:The knowledge of the participants regarding management of bio-medical waste is still in its childhood stage.There was an evident increase after administration of sensitisation program.