An attention-based hybrid architecture with explainability for depressive social media text detection in Bangla

Mental health has become a major concern in recent years. Social media have been increasingly used as platforms to gain insight into a person’s mental health condition by analysing the posts and comments, which are textual in nature. By analysing these texts, depressive posts can be detected. To facilitate this process, this work presents an attention-based bidirectional Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM)- Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) based model to detect depressive Bangla social media texts, which is lighter and more robust than the conventional models and provides better performance. A dataset containing such Bangla texts was also developed in this work to mitigate the scarcity. Different preprocessing stages were followed, and three embeddings were used in this task. Thanks to the attention mechanism, the proposed model achieved an accuracy of 94.3% with 92.63% of sensitivity and 95.12% of specificity. When tested on other languages, such as English, the proposed model performed remarkably. The robustness and explainability of the proposed model were also discussed in this paper. Additionally, when compared with classical machine learning models, ensemble approaches, transformers, other similar models, and existing architectures, the proposed model outperformed them

Factors associated with food safety knowledge and practices among meat handlers in Bangladesh: a cross-sectional study.

Background Food handlers can play a vital role into reducing foodborne diseases by adopting appropriate food handling and sanitation practices in working plants. This study aimed to assess the factors associated with food safety knowledge and practices among meat handlers who work at butcher shops in Bangladesh. Methods A cross-sectional study was conducted among 300 meat handlers from January to March, 2021. Data were collected through in-person interviews using a structured questionnaire. The questionnaire consisted of three parts; socio-demographic characteristics, assessments of food safety knowledge, and food safety practices. A multiple logistic regression model was used to identify the factors associated with food safety knowledge and practices. Results Only 20% [95% confidence interval, (CI) 15.7–24.7] and 16.3% (95% CI 12.3–20.7) of the respondents demonstrated good levels of food safety knowledge and practices, respectively. The factors associated with good levels of food safety knowledge were: having a higher secondary education [adjusted odds ratio (AOR) = 4.57, 95% CI 1.11–18.76], income above 25,000 BDT/month (AOR = 10.52, 95% CI 3.43–32.26), work experience of > 10 years (AOR = 9.31, 95% CI 1.92–45.09), ≥ 8 h per day of work (AOR = 6.14, 95% CI 2.69–13.10), employed on a daily basis (AOR = 4.05, 95% CI 1.16–14.14), and having food safety training (AOR = 8.98 95% CI 2.16–37.32). Good food safety knowledge (AOR = 5.68, 95% CI 2.33–13.87) and working ≥ 8 h per day (AOR = 8.44, 95% CI 3.11–22.91) were significantly associated with a good level of food safety practice. Conclusions Poor knowledge and practices regarding food safety were found among Bangladeshi meat handlers. Findings may help public health professionals and practitioners develop targeted strategies to improve food safety knowledge and practices among this population. Such strategies may include education and sensitization on good food safety practices

Assessment of Food Safety Knowledge, Attitudes and Practices of Food Service Staff in Bangladeshi Hospitals: A Cross-Sectional Study.

Food safety knowledge, attitudes and practices among hospital food service staff are crucial in the prevention of foodborne disease outbreaks, as hospitalized patients are more vulnerable to potential hazards. This study, therefore, sought to assess the food safety knowledge, attitudes and practices of food service staff in Bangladeshi hospitals. A cross-sectional study was conducted among 191 food service staff from seven different hospitals in Dhaka and Chattogram from October 2021 to March 2022 using pretested questionnaires. Multiple linear regression was used to identify the factors associated with the food safety knowledge, attitudes and practices. The findings showed moderate knowledge but high levels of attitudes and practices of food safety among hospital food handlers. Food safety knowledge was significantly higher among males, participants from private hospitals and participants working in a hospital that had a food service supervisor and dietitian in charge of food service operations. Moreover, participants from private hospitals and participants working in a hospital that had a food service supervisor and dietitian in charge of food service operations had more positive attitudes and better practices regarding food safety. Hospital management should consider these factors for enhancing food handlers' knowledge and increase training and supervision on food safety practices to reduce foodborne diseases and outbreaks