Background: Indoor air pollutants are increasingly being associated with respiratory illnesses leading to high degree of morbidity and mortality. There are not sufficient epidemiological studies from Pakistan which assess level of awareness of indoor air pollution resulting in respiratory diseases in population. Methods: This cross sectional survey was carried out on general population of Rawalpindi/Islamabad. Sample size was 223 study subjects selected by non-probability convenient sampling. Knowledge of the study subjects was determined with regard to indoor air pollution, its effects on health and different sources of indoor air pollution with the help of a questionnaire. The influence of age, gender, educational status and socio economic status on the level of awareness was also analyzed. Results: Out of total 223 participants, 115 were males and108 females. Participants aware of indoor air pollution were 91.5% and adequate awareness about its sources was 80.7%. Those who knew indoor air pollution is detrimental to health were 95.1%. Awareness about building construction dust as source of indoor air pollution was maximum (84.8%). There was significant difference in awareness among participants with different monthly incomes and educational status and also between males and females. Conclusion: This study concludes that general population of Rawalpindi/Islamabad has fairly good awareness about sources of indoor air pollution. Use of harmful material causing indoor air pollution should be limited or substituted with better ones where possible.

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Background and Objectives: Nutritional status is considered a significant and positive health indicator. It determines anthropometric measurements of preschool children, the height of children at the time of school entry and prevalence of low birth weight. The objective of the study was to determine the frequency of nutritional status and socio-demographic factors influencing under nutrition among school children of rural Islamabad. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted among school children of the age (4-16 years) from January 2017 to September 2019. The Sample size was 1710. Schools were selected through convenient sampling technique. Frequency and percentages were calculated and inferential statistics were computed to analyze the association of health status with categorical variables by using chi-square by keeping the level of significance <0.05 through SPSS version 20. Results: The mean age of the sample was 9.38±4.14 with the maximum number of children (49.1%) in the age bracket of 5-9. Out of 1710 children, 54.4% had normal weight for age, 25.3% were underweight, 7.5% overweight and 12.8% were found to be obese. Stunting was found to be 26%. Prevalence of being underweight was higher than overweight /obesity particularly in younger and higher age groups as indicated by p-value of 0.000. Comparing with females, male students had significantly higher frequency of being underweight and stunted as reflected by p-value of 0.004 and 0.000 respectively. Univariate analysis also showed a strong association between age and nutritional status as mean weight increased from 39.22±5.21 to 63.50±4.66 and height from 35.67±5.76 to 113.73±29.22 with advancing age. Conclusions: Undernutrition remains an ongoing health problem in school going children of rural Islamabad; particularly in male students of younger age groups. School health programs and nutritional interventions need to be strengthened particularly in rural areas of Islamabad. doi: https://doi.org/10.12669/pjms.37.5.3773 How to cite this:Farhin S, Jaffry T, Zafar S, Rashid F. Frequency and assessment of Nutritional Status of school going children in rural areas of Islamabad. Pak J Med Sci. 2021;37(5):---------. doi: https://doi.org/10.12669/pjms.37.5.3773 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Background: Pakistan's health care system has been adversely affected by the non-availability of doctors in its rural and remote areas. It is the high time to realize that the improvement in the standard of health care services can be achieved with willingness and dedication of doctors to work in these areas which is only possible by providing them with suitable working environment. Methods: This was a descriptive cross-sectional study conducted on 200 doctors working in public and private hospitals/clinics of Islamabad, Pakistan. Data was collected through a questionnaire and processed in SPSS software version 16. Results: 200 doctors comprising of 113 males and 87 females were recruited for the study. The mean age was 30 years (0.65 SD). Majority (86.5 %) of the doctors were of the view; that indeed it was the non-availability of doctors at rural health care centres for poor health services in such areas. 83.9 % agreed that basic facilities were lacking in rural areas. Regarding transportation, 74.5 % had the opinion that these facilities were inadequate in rural areas. Nevertheless, 84.5 % agreed that by improving the basic facilities of life, working conditions could be improved. However, 72.5 % supported the idea of extra hard area grant to improve doctors' motivation towards serving rural areas. Conclusion: Doctors were reluctant to serve in rural areas because of the difficulties affecting their social, professional and family life. By developing the infra-structure of health centres and by providing some special incentives to the serving doctors, this issue can be resolved to a considerable extent.

Background: Pakistan is located in the Himalayan region, which has the highest vulnerability to earthquakes. The Islamabad-Rawalpindi area lies in a tectonically active zone, where earthquakes have been frequent in the recent geological past. Earthquake preparedness in schools is relatively under studied area in Pakistan. The objective of this study was to determine the level of preparedness of schools for earthquakes and to compare it between urban and rural, government and private schools in Islamabad Capital Territory. Material and Methods: It was a cross-sectional comparative study. The study population was schools of Islamabad Capital Territory. The total sample size was 74 and non-probability purposive sampling technique was used.  Data was collected through a structured questionnaire pretested on 5% of the sample size and respondents were administrative staff of schools. Data was analyzed using SPSS version 21. Data of the categorical variables was presented in the form of frequencies (percentages). Statistical significance of association between school profile and level of preparedness was determined by using bivariate tabular association analysis (Chi square). Results: Out of 74 schools, 61 were private and 14 were government schools. 46 schools were located in urban areas while 28 were in rural area of Islamabad Capital Territory. Out of the total schools, 66.2% had written preparedness plan for earthquake and 73% of the schools had a safety committee to lead disaster response planning.  Most of the schools (82.4%) had minimum of two exits in high occupancy rooms. There was significant association of location of school with preparedness plan for earthquake (p=0.009), and type of school with two evacuation drills annually (p=0.03). Conclusion: Private schools and those located in urban areas are better prepared for earthquakes as compared to government schools and the ones located in rural areas.