CKD patients living in the Anuradhapura District spent significant amounts on accessing health care which can worsen their economic hardships. Planned interventions are warranted in order to improve their quality of life and financial situation.

Background: Creating a healthy eating environment in schools is a proposed outcome of school canteen guidelines issued in 2007 in Sri Lanka. Maintaining service quality, guarantees achieving better health standards of school canteens. Objectives: This study assessed service quality of canteens in terms of location, physical facilities in food preparation and serving areas, food handling practices, food storage, and waste management. Further, it explored causes for deviating the service quality from the stipulated guidelines. Methods: This is a across sectional study, conducted in government schools in two districts in 2014. Service qualities of the canteens were assessed using a quantitative tool. Qualitative inquiry was used to explore perceptions of school principals and canteen operators on service quality. Results: Eighty eight percent of canteens were located in a suitable place and 78% had a clean outside environment. Only two third of food preparation areas satisfied the basic criteria. A dining area was available for students only in half. More than 80% of canteens had waste water drainage and 89% of canteens had bins for waste disposal. However, majority of canteens did not keep bins closed. Half of the canteens had cooling equipment, and majority of them had a practice to store raw materials and cooked food separately. Almost in 30 % of canteens, food was not covered in the serving area, and more than 90% of canteens used neither aprons nor gloves. Conclusion: This study found that providing quality food quality in school canteens has been a challenge due to many gaps in the present system. However, strengthening the service quality towards a healthy nutrition promoting setting can be done by change in planning and implementation processes.

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Introduction: Sri Lanka introduced school canteen guidelines in 2007 to promote healthy food choices and eating habits among school children. This initiative intended to combat malnutrition among school children through provision of nutritious, culturally acceptable food at affordable prices within the school premises. A formal assessment has not been done on the implementation of those guidelines for last seven years. The objective of this study was to assess the availability of healthy food items in school canteens and explore perceptions of providers on adherence to the guidelines. Materials and Methods: A cross sectional study was conducted in government schools in two districts. A mix methodology was employed. An observational check list was used to quantitatively assess the availability of healthy food items according to stipulated guidelines. This was followed by a qualitative inquiry to explore perceptions of school principals and canteen operators on adherence to the guidelines using in-depth interviews. Results: Only two out of ten food items encouraged in the guidelines were available in 50 % of the school canteens. In contrast, five out of nine items prohibited or discouraged were available in half of the canteens. Also 25% of canteens sold carbonated drinks that are totally prohibited. Differential understanding of healthy versus unhealthy, current food habits of students, present method of selecting canteen operators and other external factors contributed negatively. Conclusion: The rigor of implementation was sub optimal at present due to many reasons. Those obstacles can be addressed through coordinated efforts to transform canteen towards a nutrition promoting setting.

Having a stable livelihood not only gives a financial safeguard for ageing but also works as a policy solution for rapid ageing. Like many other countries, Sri Lanka is also confronting a rapid ‘population ageing’ phenomenon. Population ageing not only affects structural changes in the population but also impacts a country’s macroeconomic and social conditions. Enforcing human resource policy solutions to retain older workers in the labour force longer is one of the measures which can prevent the economy, as well as individual households, from the excess burden of old age dependents. This study aims to investigate the factors which explain the choice of livelihood of persons aged over 50 years. Two multinomial logit models were used to determine the factors affecting labour force participation and sector participation (public, private and self-employed). Varme’s occupation choice model (2000) was employed as the theoretical model. Entering to different job opportunities is mostly concentrated in the urbanized cities and job opportunities in less-developed districts are limited only to the public sector. In addition, lower educated people have less chance to engage in employment, and a majority of them are unemployed. Higher educated people mostly work in public sector, than in the private sector. Accordingly, effective policy decision needs to be taken to redistribute the benefits of economic development equitably.