Dr Vijayashree Y, faculty and PhD scholar at Institute of Public Health, article titled ” Determinants of sputum conversion at two months of treatment under National Tuberculosis Programme, South India “published in “International Journal of Medical Science and Public Health”, This study carried out in 2012 to investigate the reasons for low sputum conversion rate in Sira (among patients registered with RNTCP).
Background: In India, Revised National Tuberculosis (TB) control programme (RNTCP) offers free diagnosis and treatment for TB, based on the Directly Observed Treatment Short (DOTS) course strategy. Under RNTCP, sputum conversion rate (SCR), at the end of 2 months of treatment is an important operational indicator, which is ideally expected to be 90%.
Aim and Objectives: The objective of the present work was to investigate the factors associated with low SCR at the end of 2 months of treatment in Sira TB unit, Tumkur District, India.
Material and Methods: It is a retrospective cohort study of all new sputum smear-positive patients registered in RNTCP in 2011. Data were retrieved from the TB register maintained at the District TB center. Chi-square and Student’s t-test were used for analysis of the study variables between patients who were sputum positive and sputum negative at the end of 2 months of treatment. Multivariate logistic regression was applied to determine the risk contributed by the variables towards non-conversion of sputum.
We were covered extensively in print media – pre and post event total of 24 articles.
On social media also we have seen a tremendous surge over past few days. On Facebook we have gone from 5,500 likes to 8,500 and in twitter as well. It was very heartening to see lot of online engagement by IPH staff on Twitter. All in all we really enjoyed executing the ‘social media cafe’ on EPHP.
Keynote speakers for this year’s edition of EPHP have been confirmed. We have dynamic and experienced public health researchers attending to share and discuss about equity in healthcare, intersectoral action in health. Dr Abdul Ghaffar, executive director of WHO Alliance, will also be present and share his 30 years ofexperience in public health research. Presenters from different healthcare research backgrounds will be presenting on this year’s theme for EPHP 2016. To know more click here
The e-learning course in health financing was conceptualised by Dr. N. Devadasan. He has a rich experience in the field and has been teaching this subject in many universities. Keeping in mind the current public health scenario, where the competency in health financing is an important asset for the professionals and policy makers, the course was designed to bridge the knowledge gap in the field and strengthen the capacity of professionals in health financing.
The first batch of e-learning course in health financing was launched in April this year. From hundreds of applications, we shortlisted 28 applicants for enrollment in the course. We have a mix of academicians, researchers, government and non-government professionals in our current batch. The batch has representation from National Health Mission (NHM), ESI,etc. There are participants from UNICEF and NGOs like ACCESS Health International, HSRII,SAMA, MYRADA, PHFI and other organisations like International union against tuberculosis and lung diseases. We also have participants from academic institutions like Puducherry Institute of Medical Sciences and IIHMR. Through our e-learning course we have reached participants across the country from Rajasthan in west to Odisha in east, Delhi in north to Kerala to south.
The course consists of four modules, each module has three units and each unit has three to four classrooms that are powerpoint presentations with audio and video recordings. Classrooms also have corresponding exercises to test the knowledge of participants. We have some interesting learning activities in the course for making the learning more practical and keeping the participants motivated. Each module has an activity called ‘From the field’. In this section, we interview the key people from the field and bring their stories to participants. Another engaging feature is ‘Crossword Puzzle’, where after each module participants can unlock a level and get clues to solve the puzzle. Another interactive feature is ‘FAQs’, where in the Subject Matter Expert (SME) answers the queries of participants in the form of video than just typing on the discussion forum.
We are systematically tracking the progress of our participants and give feedback whenever needed. We hope that the course will be a success and we will be running several batches of the course in the near future.
The Institute of Public Health, Bengaluru in collaboration with Centre for Tropical Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Universitas Gadjah Mada hosted the second regional course on Good Health Research Practice in Bengaluru. Five teams with public health research backgrounds from across the country participated in the 4-day training where they were introduced to concepts and principles of good health research practices. Overall, the 4-day training involved a lot of interaction between participants and the facilitators.
Diljith Kannan, training coordinator and Dr.Aneesha Ahluwalia, tutor for e-learning courses attended the eighth annual workshop of the LINQED educational network. The workshop was organised at the Uganda Martyrs University (Faculty of Health Sciences), Kampala, Uganda from 17th till 20th May 2016.
Started in 2008, LINQED refers to Learning together on quality in education in international health, working on quality in education and linking up people. It is a network of educational and government institutions providing postgraduate level training in human and animal tropical medicine, public health and international health.
LINQED organises annual workshops that focus on pedagogy, quality assurance and e-learning. The theme for this year was ‘Improving education leadership and research, cooperative learning and critical thinking in higher education’.
The focus areas of the workshop:
Cooperative learning
Critical thinking
Educational research
Education leadership
The workshop was a good networking platform, where the members got an opportunity to interact with participants from various countries and share their experiences. Diljith Kannan presented about quality assurance and IPH experience with e-learning. The workshop helped IPH members gain new perspectives about the learning activities and education research. It was like a stepping stone towards introducing new learning activities in their e-learning courses. The workshop was also promising in terms of providing us support for research in the field of e-learning.
