The World Meteorological Organization’s State of the Climate in Asia 2024 report warns that the region is warming nearly twice as fast as the global average, driving more extreme weather and posing serious threats to lives, ecosystems, and economies. In 2024, Asia experienced its warmest or second warmest year on …
The construction of dams in Africa is often associated with adverse malaria impacts in surrounding communities. However, the degree and nature of these impacts are rarely quantified and the feasibility of environmental control measures (e.g.,manipulation of reservoir water levels) to mitigate malaria impacts has not been previously investigated in Africa. …
There is growing interest in disentangling the health effects of spatially clustered social and physical environmental exposures and in exploring potential synergies among them, with particular attention directed to the combined effects of psychosocial stress and air pollution. Both exposures may be elevated in lower-income urban communities, and it has …
Much of the so-called problems in the polio eradication programme in India pointed out by Rajib Dasgupta (EPW, 20 June 2009) have been known for years. At the same time, the article is silent about several critical issues. It is necessary to take cognisance of the larger political economy of …
Cardiovascular diseases have emerged as an important health problem in India. High blood pressure (BP) is a major risk factor and better control can lead to prevention of 300,000 of the 1.5 million annual deaths from cardiovascular diseases in India. Epidemiological studies demonstrate that prevalence of hypertension is increasing rapidly …
It provides the oldest skeletal evidence of leprosy a museum in Pune has a collection of thousands of bones and skeletons excavated in India. Among them is a 4,000 year old skeleton of a man believed to be 37 years when he died. This skeleton was found buried at Balathal, …
In the context of growing recognition of health as a vital component of human capital and the need for evolving sustainable health care system (HCS), an epidemiologic study was conducted in an area in rural AP in 2006. The empirical results show a higher level of sickness than at the …
The University of Michigan Dioxin Exposure Study (UMDES) was undertaken in response to concerns that the discharge of dioxin-like compounds from the Dow Chemical Company facilities in Midland, Michigan, resulted in contamination of soils in the Tittabawassee River floodplain and areas of the city of Midland, leading to an increase …
The World Health Organization (WHO) this week remained on the verge of declaring a pandemic of the H1N1 swine-associated flu virus. Public-health bodies and scientists have made progress in starting to understand the outbreak, but major questions remain about how severe the disease will get.
In the spring of 1918, North Americans were complaining about an unseasonable flu that was sweeping through several cities. They and the rest of the world were still blissfully unaware of what was in store for later that year: a pandemic that would kill 50 million people, or by some …
Climate change is likely to affect the nature of pathogens and chemicals in the environment and their fate and transport. Future risks of pathogens and chemicals could therefore be very different from those of today. In this review, we assess the implications of climate change for changes in human exposures …
This is the 13th annual report on global control of tuberculosis (TB) published by WHO. 196 countries and territories that reported data in 2008 account for 99.6% of the world
Epidemiologic studies suggest a positive association between fine particulate matter and arterial blood pressure, but the results have been inconsistent. The researchers investigated the effect of ambient particles on systemic hemodynamics during a 5-hr exposure to concentrated ambient air particles (CAPs) or filtered air (FA) in conscious canines.
During the last decade, mobile phone use increased to almost 100% prevalence in many countries of the world. Evidence for potential health hazards accumulated in parallel by epidemiologic investigations has raised controversies about the appropriate interpretation and the degree of bias and confounding responsible for reduced or increased risk estimates.
Associations have been found between day-to-day particulate air pollution and increased risk of various adverse health outcomes, including cardiopulmonary mortality. However, studies of health effects of long-term particulate air pollution have been less conclusive. To assess the relationship between long-term exposure to fine particulate air pollution and all-cause, lung cancer, …
A large body of epidemiologic literature has found an association of increased fine particulate air pollution (PM2.5) with acute and chronic mortality. The effect of improvements in particle exposure is less clear. Earlier analysis of the Harvard Six Cities adult cohort study showed an association between long-term ambient PM2.5 and …
This Institute started as "Occupational Health Research Institute' (OHRI) in the year 1966 and was re-christened as "National Institute of Occupational Health' (NIOH) in 1970 presently located in the Eastern part of Ahmedabad. Two Regional Occupational Health Centers (ROHCs) were started at Bangalore in 1977 and at Kolkata in 1980. …
The National Institute of Communicable Disease (NICD) was established on July 30, 1963, subsequent to the decision of the Government of India to expand and reorganise the activities of the Malaria Institute of India (MII) which remained in existence under different names since its inception in 1909.The reorganised Institute was …
Epidemiological studies were conducted in pesticide exposed agricultural workers along with an equal number of age- and sex-matched controls. All the 200 exposed volunteers were suffering from fever, nausea, headache and other abnormal symptoms and visited the hospital for general health check-up. These cases were taken up for more detailed …
