Healthcare decisions for individual patients and for public health policies should be informed by the best available research evidence. The practice of evidence-based medicine is the integration of individual clinical expertise with the best available external clinical evidence from systematic research and patient's values and expectations. Primary care physicians need evidence for both clinical practice and for public health decision making. The evidence comes from good reviews which is a state-of-the-art synthesis of current evidence on a given research question. Given the explosion of medical literature, and the fact that time is always scarce, review articles play a vital role in decision making in evidence-based medical practice. Given that most clinicians and public health professionals do not have the time to track down all the original articles, critically read them, and obtain the evidence they need for their questions, systematic reviews and clinical practice guidelines may be their best source of evidence. Systematic reviews aim to identify, evaluate, and summarize the findings of all relevant individual studies over a health-related issue, thereby making the available evidence more accessible to decision makers. The objective of this article is to introduce the primary care physicians about the concept of systematic reviews and meta-analysis, outlining why they are important, describing their methods and terminologies used, and thereby helping them with the skills to recognize and understand a reliable review which will be helpful for their day-to-day clinical practice and research activities.

Road traffic accidents (RTAs) have emerged as an important public health issue which needs to be tackled by a multi-disciplinary approach. The trend in RTA injuries and death is becoming alarming in countries like India. The number of fatal and disabling road accident happening is increasing day by day and is a real public health challenge for all the concerned agencies to prevent it. The approach to implement the rules and regulations available to prevent road accidents is often ineffective and half-hearted. Awareness creation, strict implementation of traffic rules, and scientific engineering measures are the need of the hour to prevent this public health catastrophe. This article is intended to create awareness among the health professionals about the various modalities available to prevent road accidents and also to inculcate a sense of responsibility toward spreading the message of road safety as a good citizen of our country.

Adolescence is a phase of rapid growth and development during which physical, physiological and behavioural changes occur. They constitute more than 1.2 billion worldwide, and about 21% of Indian population. Morbidity and mortality occurring in this age group is mostly due to preventable causes. Young and growing children have poor knowledge and lack of awareness about physical and psychological changes that occurs during adolescence and the ill health affecting them. Existing Adolescent health programmes focus on rendering services like immunization, health education for sexual and reproductive health, nutritional education and supplementation, anemia control measures and counseling. Adolescent health programmes are fragmentary at present and there is no comprehensive programme addressing all the needs of adolescents. Access and availability of health care services are severely limited. Lack of accurate information, absence of proper guidance, parent's ignorance, lack of skills and insufficient services from health care delivery system are the major barriers. Interventions should focus on providing psychological and mental health services and behaviour change communication towards leading a healthy lifestyle, restricting advertisement related to junk food products, awareness creation about reproductive and sexual health, educating parents to prevent early marriage, teenage pregnancy and to counsel their children on nutrition and reproductive health. Universal coverage of Adolescent friendly clinics is highly recommended. To be cost effective, all health services addressing adolescent should come under single programme. This review is intended to create awareness among the stakeholders about the importance of strengthening adolescent health services in order to meet their felt needs.

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Introduction:Acute respiratory infection (ARI) is an infection of the respiratory tract. It may interfere with normal breathing of the individual and is communicable in nature. There are several modifiable risk factors that predispose younger age group of children to ARI. The aim of this study is to evaluate the risk factors that contribute to occurrence of ARI among the under 5 children.Methods:This community based cross sectional study was carried out among 380 rural under five children in Kancheepuram district, by systematic random sampling method. A pretested structured questionnaire was used for data collection that was analyzed using SPSS software version 16. The analytical statistics such as Chi – square test, Odds Ratio, and Confidence Interval were used to determine the association of ARI with its determinants.Results:In this study, the prevalence of ARI among under five children was 41.6%. The prevalence of ARI was predominant among boys (50.6%) and those residing in semi pucca and kutcha type of house (50.3%) with poor ventilation (61.3%), history of parental smoking (57%), respiratory infection among family members (51.1%) children who did not cry immediately after birth because of any complication (60.9%), and malnourished children (66.4%). These factors contributed to increased prevalence of ARI with a statistically significant association with a P value < 0.05.Conclusion:The high prevalence of ARI in this study was contributed by multiple factors. The primary care physician can play a vital role to create awareness on hazards because of exposure to the various contributing factors by lifestyle modifications, good nutrition, and healthy and safe environment.