Adolescent Violence: Proneness Factors of Victims

Introduction: Approximately three-quarters of adolescents experience some type of victimization, either in school or as a whole in society. Their mental acumen is not strong enough due to various reasons to resolve this age-related crisis and pushing them in a web of stress. The attitude of victim is influenced by his self-social image, personality and behavior which provide the space to the perpetrator of the offence. Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional survey, using a pretested self-report questionnaire was conducted on 960 students aged 10–18 years of urban schools regarding the indulgence in violence as victims during the last one year.Observations: The prevalence of victimization was 18.33% while in male and female it was 59.09% and 40.90% in their respective groups. Parents possessing education less than high school produce the highest numbers of victims. 65.34% victims were staying with both parents and 19.88%, 63.63%, 55.11% and 35.79% were in habit of smoking, alcohol and tobacco use respectively.Discussion and Conclusion: Research studies have shown that the behavior can be modified and the proneness factors can be reduced or eliminated. Every child’s individuality should be appreciated for the value, rather than suppressed to reduce the risk of victimization. Not all children are able to alter their personal characteristics that may place them at increased risk. To benefit the society, the segregation and counselling of such students at school level is the only answer of this problem

Adolescent Violence through Technology in India

Introduction: The shift from the physical to virtual communication has been emerged as a vital platform to interact through technology. Apart from the positive influences, it is also affecting the adolescents in negative manner which leads to various health hazards. All governments are committed to the ambitious sustainable development agenda and its goals, in particular SDG target 16.2 to end abuse, exploitation, trafficking and all forms of violence against and torture of children. Despite the alarming situation and commitment, there is apathy towards coining the specific laws against cybercrime amongst adolescents.Methodology: A questionnaire based cross-sectional survey method was used for data collection from the adolescents who are using mobile phones since last one year and presented in outdoor pediatric department. The study was also conducted in two schools from urban and rural locations at Lucknow district during study period.Results: In the studied population of 900 students, the maximum students 606(67.3%) were from 16-18 years of age and simple mobile users were more 505(56.1%) in number when compared. the prevalence of bullied students were females 269(29.8%) and males 381(42.3%). Maximum bullied students were of age 16-18 years. As per the mode of assault sending inappropriate SMS 378 (58.1%) on mobile was outrageous than any other method. The assault was shared mainly with friends.Conclusion: Our results reflect that the prevalence of violence amongst adolescents have reached up to a point of saturation where it is mandatory to correct their attitude to avoid any unwanted happening. Apart from the surveillance of the mobile use this is our prime duty to monitor the activities of teens on internet and develop safe cyber space

Supersensitive measurement of angular displacements using entangled photons

We show that the use of entangled photons having non-zero orbital angular momentum (OAM) increases the resolution and sensitivity of angular-displacement measurements performed using an interferometer. By employing a 4$\times$4 matrix formulation to study the propagation of entangled OAM modes, we analyze measurement schemes for two and four entangled photons and obtain explicit expressions for the resolution and sensitivity in these schemes. We find that the resolution of angular-displacement measurements scales as $Nl$ while the angular sensitivity increases as $1/(2Nl)$, where $N$ is the number of entangled photons and $l$ the magnitude of the orbital-angular-momentum mode index. These results are an improvement over what could be obtained with $N$ non-entangled photons carrying an orbital angular momentum of $l\hbar$ per photonComment: 6 pages, 3 figure

Anxiety among people living with HIV/AIDS on antiretroviral treatment attending tertiary care hospitals in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, India

Background: One of the major health challenges faced by India is the rapid growth of HIV/AIDS and its impact upon human life. Co-morbidities like anxiety are often overlooked while providing ART services to HIV/AIDS patients. Therefore the present study was conducted to assess the anxiety and associated factors among PLHA (People Living with HIV/AIDS) on antiretroviral treatment attending tertiary care hospitals in Lucknow.Methods: Hospital‑based cross-sectional study was conducted from November 2013 to March 2014 among 170 patients on treatment attending antiretroviral therapy (ART) centre of two tertiary care hospitals of Lucknow. Systematic random sampling was used to recruit patients. The anxiety level of all included patients was scored as per Hamilton anxiety rating scale. Results: The mean HAM-A score of 179 patients was 10.74±6.04. Majority (92.1%) of the patients had HAM-A score less than 17 indicating mild severity, 5.0% of the patient had mild to moderate severity while only 2.7% had moderate to severe level of anxiety symptoms. None of the patient had very severe level of anxiety. Significant association was found between level of anxiety symptoms with educational status (0.03), perception of side-effects during last one month (0.03) and duration of treatment (0.04).Conclusions: People living with HIV/AIDS need to be periodically educated and informed about various issues associated with the disease severity and antiretroviral treatment along with its side-effects so that they could better cope with disease and its treatment outcomes over time and be able to seek early treatment accordingly.

Global, regional, and national age-sex-specific mortality for 282 causes of death in 195 countries and territories, 1980-2017 : a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2017

Background Global development goals increasingly rely on country-specific estimates for benchmarking a nation's progress. To meet this need, the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD) 2016 estimated global, regional, national, and, for selected locations, subnational cause-specific mortality beginning in the year 1980. Here we report an update to that study, making use of newly available data and improved methods. GBD 2017 provides a comprehensive assessment of cause-specific mortality for 282 causes in 195 countries and territories from 1980 to 2017. Methods The causes of death database is composed of vital registration (VR), verbal autopsy (VA), registry, survey, police, and surveillance data. GBD 2017 added ten VA studies, 127 country-years of VR data, 502 cancer-registry country-years, and an additional surveillance country-year. Expansions of the GBD cause of death hierarchy resulted in 18 additional causes estimated for GBD 2017. Newly available data led to subnational estimates for five additional countries Ethiopia, Iran, New Zealand, Norway, and Russia. Deaths assigned International Classification of Diseases (ICD) codes for non-specific, implausible, or intermediate causes of death were reassigned to underlying causes by redistribution algorithms that were incorporated into uncertainty estimation. We used statistical modelling tools developed for GBD, including the Cause of Death Ensemble model (CODErn), to generate cause fractions and cause specific death rates for each location, year, age, and sex. Instead of using UN estimates as in previous versions, GBD 2017 independently estimated population size and fertility rate for all locations. Years of life lost (YLLs) were then calculated as the sum of each death multiplied by the standard life expectancy at each age. All rates reported here are age-standardised. Findings At the broadest grouping of causes of death (Level 1), non-communicable diseases (NC Ds) comprised the greatest fraction of deaths, contributing to 73.4% (95% uncertainty interval [UI] 72.5-74.1) of total deaths in 2017, while communicable, maternal, neonatal, and nutritional (CMNN) causes accounted for 186% (17.9-19.6), and injuries 8.0% (7.7-8.2). Total numbers of deaths from NCD causes increased from 2007 to 2017 by 22.7% (21.5-23.9), representing an additional 7.61 million (7. 20-8.01) deaths estimated in 2017 versus 2007. The death rate from NCDs decreased globally by 7.9% (7.08.8). The number of deaths for CMNN causes decreased by 222% (20.0-24.0) and the death rate by 31.8% (30.1-33.3). Total deaths from injuries increased by 2.3% (0-5-4-0) between 2007 and 2017, and the death rate from injuries decreased by 13.7% (12.2-15.1) to 57.9 deaths (55.9-59.2) per 100 000 in 2017. Deaths from substance use disorders also increased, rising from 284 000 deaths (268 000-289 000) globally in 2007 to 352 000 (334 000-363 000) in 2017. Between 2007 and 2017, total deaths from conflict and terrorism increased by 118.0% (88.8-148.6). A greater reduction in total deaths and death rates was observed for some CMNN causes among children younger than 5 years than for older adults, such as a 36.4% (32.2-40.6) reduction in deaths from lower respiratory infections for children younger than 5 years compared with a 33.6% (31.2-36.1) increase in adults older than 70 years. Globally, the number of deaths was greater for men than for women at most ages in 2017, except at ages older than 85 years. Trends in global YLLs reflect an epidemiological transition, with decreases in total YLLs from enteric infections, respirator}, infections and tuberculosis, and maternal and neonatal disorders between 1990 and 2017; these were generally greater in magnitude at the lowest levels of the Socio-demographic Index (SDI). At the same time, there were large increases in YLLs from neoplasms and cardiovascular diseases. YLL rates decreased across the five leading Level 2 causes in all SDI quintiles. The leading causes of YLLs in 1990 neonatal disorders, lower respiratory infections, and diarrhoeal diseases were ranked second, fourth, and fifth, in 2017. Meanwhile, estimated YLLs increased for ischaemic heart disease (ranked first in 2017) and stroke (ranked third), even though YLL rates decreased. Population growth contributed to increased total deaths across the 20 leading Level 2 causes of mortality between 2007 and 2017. Decreases in the cause-specific mortality rate reduced the effect of population growth for all but three causes: substance use disorders, neurological disorders, and skin and subcutaneous diseases. Interpretation Improvements in global health have been unevenly distributed among populations. Deaths due to injuries, substance use disorders, armed conflict and terrorism, neoplasms, and cardiovascular disease are expanding threats to global health. For causes of death such as lower respiratory and enteric infections, more rapid progress occurred for children than for the oldest adults, and there is continuing disparity in mortality rates by sex across age groups. Reductions in the death rate of some common diseases are themselves slowing or have ceased, primarily for NCDs, and the death rate for selected causes has increased in the past decade. Copyright (C) 2018 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd.Peer reviewe

Measuring progress from 1990 to 2017 and projecting attainment to 2030 of the health-related Sustainable Development Goals for 195 countries and territories: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2017

Background: Efforts to establish the 2015 baseline and monitor early implementation of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) highlight both great potential for and threats to improving health by 2030. To fully deliver on the SDG aim of “leaving no one behind”, it is increasingly important to examine the health-related SDGs beyond national-level estimates. As part of the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study 2017 (GBD 2017), we measured progress on 41 of 52 health-related SDG indicators and estimated the health-related SDG index for 195 countries and territories for the period 1990–2017, projected indicators to 2030, and analysed global attainment. Methods: We measured progress on 41 health-related SDG indicators from 1990 to 2017, an increase of four indicators since GBD 2016 (new indicators were health worker density, sexual violence by non-intimate partners, population census status, and prevalence of physical and sexual violence [reported separately]). We also improved the measurement of several previously reported indicators. We constructed national-level estimates and, for a subset of health-related SDGs, examined indicator-level differences by sex and Socio-demographic Index (SDI) quintile. We also did subnational assessments of performance for selected countries. To construct the health-related SDG index, we transformed the value for each indicator on a scale of 0–100, with 0 as the 2\ub75th percentile and 100 as the 97\ub75th percentile of 1000 draws calculated from 1990 to 2030, and took the geometric mean of the scaled indicators by target. To generate projections through 2030, we used a forecasting framework that drew estimates from the broader GBD study and used weighted averages of indicator-specific and country-specific annualised rates of change from 1990 to 2017 to inform future estimates. We assessed attainment of indicators with defined targets in two ways: first, using mean values projected for 2030, and then using the probability of attainment in 2030 calculated from 1000 draws. We also did a global attainment analysis of the feasibility of attaining SDG targets on the basis of past trends. Using 2015 global averages of indicators with defined SDG targets, we calculated the global annualised rates of change required from 2015 to 2030 to meet these targets, and then identified in what percentiles the required global annualised rates of change fell in the distribution of country-level rates of change from 1990 to 2015. We took the mean of these global percentile values across indicators and applied the past rate of change at this mean global percentile to all health-related SDG indicators, irrespective of target definition, to estimate the equivalent 2030 global average value and percentage change from 2015 to 2030 for each indicator. Findings: The global median health-related SDG index in 2017 was 59\ub74 (IQR 35\ub74–67\ub73), ranging from a low of 11\ub76 (95% uncertainty interval 9\ub76–14\ub70) to a high of 84\ub79 (83\ub71–86\ub77). SDG index values in countries assessed at the subnational level varied substantially, particularly in China and India, although scores in Japan and the UK were more homogeneous. Indicators also varied by SDI quintile and sex, with males having worse outcomes than females for non-communicable disease (NCD) mortality, alcohol use, and smoking, among others. Most countries were projected to have a higher health-related SDG index in 2030 than in 2017, while country-level probabilities of attainment by 2030 varied widely by indicator. Under-5 mortality, neonatal mortality, maternal mortality ratio, and malaria indicators had the most countries with at least 95% probability of target attainment. Other indicators, including NCD mortality and suicide mortality, had no countries projected to meet corresponding SDG targets on the basis of projected mean values for 2030 but showed some probability of attainment by 2030. For some indicators, including child malnutrition, several infectious diseases, and most violence measures, the annualised rates of change required to meet SDG targets far exceeded the pace of progress achieved by any country in the recent past. We found that applying the mean global annualised rate of change to indicators without defined targets would equate to about 19% and 22% reductions in global smoking and alcohol consumption, respectively; a 47% decline in adolescent birth rates; and a more than 85% increase in health worker density per 1000 population by 2030. Interpretation: The GBD study offers a unique, robust platform for monitoring the health-related SDGs across demographic and geographic dimensions. Our findings underscore the importance of increased collection and analysis of disaggregated data and highlight where more deliberate design or targeting of interventions could accelerate progress in attaining the SDGs. Current projections show that many health-related SDG indicators, NCDs, NCD-related risks, and violence-related indicators will require a concerted shift away from what might have driven past gains—curative interventions in the case of NCDs—towards multisectoral, prevention-oriented policy action and investments to achieve SDG aims. Notably, several targets, if they are to be met by 2030, demand a pace of progress that no country has achieved in the recent past. The future is fundamentally uncertain, and no model can fully predict what breakthroughs or events might alter the course of the SDGs. What is clear is that our actions—or inaction—today will ultimately dictate how close the world, collectively, can get to leaving no one behind by 2030