Public Health is truly interdisciplinary

There are some interesting on-going existential debates in Public Health. One of these is around the question whether Public Health is a single academic/professional discipline. There are two quite distinct and opposing views. Some argue that Public Health is a broad-ranging single discipline covering sub-disciplines such as epidemiology, management, health psychology, medical statistics, sociology of health & illness and research methods. Those who argue the latter, are implying that: (a) Public Health is the overarching dominant discipline, which brings these sub-disciplines together; and (b) that a true Public Health practitioner amalgamates all these individual elements. Others argue that Public Health is more an overarching world view or approach for wide-ranging group of professionals and academics. In this view some Public Health professionals are first trained as clinicians, others as psychologists, health economists, health management, statisticians, or demographers, and so on and have later specialised in Public Health. These debates are not purely theoretical debates as they can link to jurisdictional claims, about who can call themselves a Public Health practitioner and who can’t. This argument can go one step further to cover claims as to who can and who can’t legitimately practise or teach Public Health. The latter argument can be very divisive for Public Health, as it fails to recognise the important contribution made by other disciplines. But this is in fact not true as Public Health needs the full range of other professions and disciplines to lead and contribute to its teaching, research and consultancy practice. Public health has been a multidisciplinary enterprise since the latter half of the previous century

A coupled physical-biological-chemical model for the Indian Ocean

A coupled physical-biological-chemical model has been developed at C-MMACS. for studying the time-variation of primary productivity and air-sea carbon-dioxide exchange in the Indian Ocean. The physical model is based on the Modular Ocean Model, Version 2 (MOM2) and the biological model describes the nonlinear dynamics of a 7-component marine ecosystem. The chemical model includes dynamical equation for the evolution of dissolved inorganic carbon and total alkalinity. The interaction between the biological and chemical model is through the Redfield ratio. The partial pressure of carbon dioxide (pCO2) of the surface layer is obtained from the chemical equilibrium equations of Penget al 1987. Transfer coefficients for air-sea exchange of CO2 are computed dynamically based on the wind speeds. The coupled model reproduces the high productivity observed in the Arabian Sea off the Somali and Omani coasts during the Southwest (SW) monsoon. The entire Arabian Sea is an outgassing region for CO2 in spite of high productivity with transfer rates as high as 80 m-mol C/m2 /day during SW monsoon near the Somali Coast on account of strong winds

Factors influencing the utilization of health facilities for childbirth in a disadvantaged community of Lalitpur, Nepal

Background: In Nepal, half of deliveries take place at home (HMIS 2014), while institutional birth assisted by skilled birth attendants (SBAs) are still infrequent. Objectives: This study explores factors influencing the utilization of health facilities for childbirth in a disadvantaged community of rural Nepal. Method: A qualitative study with two focus groups: mothers-in-law and husbands, and female community health volunteers. 28 semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with selected participants 20 mothers and 8 grass-root and policy level stakeholders. Data were analysed by three delays model of conceptual framework. Results: The main reasons for giving birth at home included cultural tradition, lack of awareness about danger signs during pregnancy and childbirth, about importance of skilled birth attendants and lack of knowledge about availability of free 24-hours delivery sites/birthing centers, inability to afford two way transportation costs despite transport incentives provided by government for institutional delivery, fear of episiotomy/surgery/physical abuse and health service provider’s attitude for home delivery. Health facilities were mostly used by women who experienced complications during childbirth Policy Implications: Significant gaps from policy to grass root levels were identified which -suggests that dissemination of information about free delivery must be more effective. The health workers should convincingly inform families about benefits of institutional delivery, especially in marginalized/disadvantaged communities

Effect of feeding maize fiber in wet, dry and silage form with cotton cake supplementation on intake, nutrient utilization and performance in Nellore Brown sheep

Maize fiber was evaluated in wet, dry and silage form with 200 g cotton cake supplementation in growing Nellore Brown ram lambs (24.8±0.96) using six sheep per treatment in a growth-cummetabolism trial of 90 days with collection of feed, leftover, feces and urine samples during the last ten days. Average daily gain (g), nutrient digestibility (OM, CP, NDF, ADF) tended to be higher (P = 0.07 to 0.09) and intake of OM, DOM, CP (gld) and ME (MJ!d) and nitrogen retention were significantly (P = 0. 0002 to 0. 002) higher in lambs when fed maize fiber in silage rather than in wet and dry form. Depending on input such as labor required ensilaging or drying of maize fiber seems an economically more beneficial and from a food security point of view a safer way than feeding wet maize fiber