Cash transfers, maternal depression and emotional well-being: Quasi-experimental evidence from India's Janani Suraksha Yojana programme.

Maternal depression is an important public health concern. We investigated whether a national-scale initiative that provides cash transfers to women giving birth in government health facilities, the Janani Suraksha Yojana (JSY), reduced maternal depression in India's largest state, Uttar Pradesh. Using primary data on 1695 women collected in early 2015, our quasi-experimental design exploited the fact that some women did not receive the JSY cash due to administrative problems in its disbursement - reasons that are unlikely to be correlated with determinants of maternal depression. We found that receipt of the cash was associated with an 8.5% reduction in the continuous measure of maternal depression and a 36% reduction in moderate depression. There was no evidence of an association with measures of emotional well-being, namely happiness and worry. The results suggest that the JSY had a clinically meaningful effect in reducing the burden of maternal depression, possibly by lessening the financial strain of delivery care. They contribute to the evidence that financial incentive schemes may have public health benefits beyond improving uptake of targeted health services

Effect of a multifaceted social franchising model on quality and coverage of maternal, newborn, and reproductive health-care services in Uttar Pradesh, India: a quasi-experimental study.

BACKGROUND: How to harness the private sector to improve population health in low-income and middle-income countries is heavily debated and one prominent strategy is social franchising. We aimed to evaluate whether the Matrika social franchising model-a multifaceted intervention that established a network of private providers and strengthened the skills of both public and private sector clinicians-could improve the quality and coverage of health services along the continuum of care for maternal, newborn, and reproductive health. METHODS: We did a quasi-experimental study, which combined matching with difference-in-differences methods. We matched 60 intervention clusters (wards or villages) with a social franchisee to 120 comparison clusters in six districts of Uttar Pradesh, India. The intervention was implemented by two not-for-profit organisations from September, 2013, to May, 2016. We did two rounds (January, 2015, and May, 2016) of a household survey for women who had given birth up to 2 years previously. The primary outcome was the proportion of women who gave birth in a health-care facility. An additional 56 prespecified outcomes measured maternal health-care use, content of care, patient experience, and other dimensions of care. We organised conceptually similar outcomes into 14 families to create summary indices. We used multivariate difference-in-differences methods for the analyses and accounted for multiple inference. FINDINGS: The introduction of Matrika was not significantly associated with the change in facility births (4 percentage points, 95% CI -1 to 9; p=0·100). Effects for any of the other individual outcomes or for any of the 14 summary indices were not significant. Evidence was weak for an increase of 0·13 SD (95% CI 0·00 to 0·27; p=0·053) in recommended delivery care practices. INTERPRETATION: The Matrika social franchise model was not effective in improving the quality and coverage of maternal health services at the population level. Several key reasons identified for the absence of an effect potentially provide generalisable lessons for social franchising programmes elsewhere. FUNDING: Merck Sharp and Dohme Limited

Matrika Household Survey in India

Data produced as part of a study to evaluate the impact of the Matrika social franchising model – a multi-faceted intervention that established a network of private providers and strengthened the skills of both public and private sector clinicians – and determine whether it has improved the quality and coverage of health services along the continuum of care for maternal, newborn and reproductive health in Uttar Pradesh, India. The datasets cover two rounds of a household survey, performed in January 2015 and May 2016, of women who had recently given birth

Evidence of forward–backward correlation of pions in ultra-relativistic ring- and jet-like events in

An investigation on the presence of the forward–backward correlations in the pions multiplicity, emitted in $$^{16}O-Ag/Br$$ interactions at energy $$E_{lab}$$= 60 A GeV are carried out. The study of the forward–backward correlation between various observables which is separated by two different pseudorapidity intervals can be treated as an important probe to defining the primordial conditions for the formation of the Quark Gluon Plasma (QGP). We have observed the dependency of correlation fluctuations and correlation strength on pseudorapidity ($$\eta$$) and the increasing width of the pseudorapidity bin size $$\varDelta \eta$$. The roughness of the multiplicities and the particle number deviations are also investigated. The nuclear photographic emulsion technique has been employed to collect the experimental data. We have performed the FRITIOF and Ultra-relativistic Quantum Molecular Dynamics (UrQMD) simulations to compare the experimental results with the simulated results. The analysis strongly indicates the presence of forward–backward correlations in the experimental distributions of pions beyond statistical noise. We have also analyzed the ring- and jet-like structure to confirm the presence of the forward–backward correlations in the multiplicities of $$^{16}O-Ag/Br$$ interactions at 60 A GeV. We have also taken the variations of correlation fluctuations and correlation strength in $$\eta$$ and $$\varDelta \eta$$ space, respectively for the ring-like and jet-like structure. The average behavior of correlation parameters of ring-like events strongly differs from jet-like events due to expected Cherenkov Gluon radiation

Real-world refractive outcomes of toric intraocular lens implantation in a United Kingdom National Health Service setting

Abstract Background With increasing availability of toric intraocular lenses (IOL) for cataract surgery, real-world refractive outcome data is needed to aid the counselling of patients regarding lens choice. We aim to assess the outcomes of toric intraocular lens use in the non-specialist environment of a typical United Kingdom NHS cataract service. Methods A retrospective cohort study conducted at the Oxford Eye Hospital, Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, UK. All patients who received a toric IOL implant over a 10 months period. Patients underwent pre-operative corneal marking, phacoemulsification and toric IOL implantation. Biometry was obtained using a Zeiss IOLMaster 500 and the toric IOLs were selected using the manufacturers’ online calculators. Post-operative refractions were obtained from optometrist’s manifest refraction or by autorefraction. The outcome measures were post-operative unaided visual acuity (UVA), spherical equivalent refraction, cylindrical correction and all complications. Results Thirty-two eyes of 24 patients aged 21–86 years (mean 66.4, SD 14.5) were included. UVA was superior to pre-operative best-corrected visual acuity (BCVA) in 81% of eyes, same in 16% and inferior in 3%, resulting in a median improvement of 0.20 LogMAR (IQR 0.10 to 0.30). 56%, 81%, 94% and 100% of eyes were within ±0.5, ±1.0, ±1.5 and ±2.0 D of predicted spherical equivalent, respectively. Three (9%) eyes required further surgery to rectify significant IOL rotation. Conclusions Reduced cylindrical correction and improved UVA could be expected in the majority of patients undergoing toric IOL implantation. Patients should be counselled about the risk of lens rotation

Optical Properties of Neutral F Centers in Bulk MgO with Density Matrix Embedding

The optical spectra of neutral oxygen vacancies ($F^0$ centers) in the bulk MgO lattice was investigated using density matrix embedding theory. The impurity Hamiltonian was solved with the complete active space self-consistent field (CAS-DMET) and second-order n-electron valence state perturbation theory (NEVPT2-DMET) multireference methods. To estimate defect-localized vertical excitation energies at the non-embedding and thermodynamic limits, a double extrapolation scheme was employed. The extrapolated NEVPT2-DMET vertical excitation energy value of 5.24 eV agrees well with the experimental absorption maxima at 5.03 eV, whereas the excitation energy value of 2.89 eV at the relaxed triplet defect localized state geometry overestimates the experimental emission at 2.4 eV by only nearly 0.5 eV, indicating the involvement of triplet-singlet decay pathway

Effect of a multifaceted social franchising model on quality and coverage of maternal, newborn, and reproductive health-care services in Uttar Pradesh, India: a quasi-experimental study

Background: How to harness the private sector to improve population health in low-income and middle-income countries is heavily debated and one prominent strategy is social franchising. We aimed to evaluate whether the Matrika social franchising model—a multifaceted intervention that established a network of private providers and strengthened the skills of both public and private sector clinicians—could improve the quality and coverage of health services along the continuum of care for maternal, newborn, and reproductive health. Methods: We did a quasi-experimental study, which combined matching with difference-in-differences methods. We matched 60 intervention clusters (wards or villages) with a social franchisee to 120 comparison clusters in six districts of Uttar Pradesh, India. The intervention was implemented by two not-for-profit organisations from September, 2013, to May, 2016. We did two rounds (January, 2015, and May, 2016) of a household survey for women who had given birth up to 2 years previously. The primary outcome was the proportion of women who gave birth in a health-care facility. An additional 56 prespecified outcomes measured maternal health-care use, content of care, patient experience, and other dimensions of care. We organised conceptually similar outcomes into 14 families to create summary indices. We used multivariate difference-in-differences methods for the analyses and accounted for multiple inference. Findings: The introduction of Matrika was not significantly associated with the change in facility births (4 percentage points, 95% CI −1 to 9; p=0·100). Effects for any of the other individual outcomes or for any of the 14 summary indices were not significant. Evidence was weak for an increase of 0·13 SD (95% CI 0·00 to 0·27; p=0·053) in recommended delivery care practices. Interpretation: The Matrika social franchise model was not effective in improving the quality and coverage of maternal health services at the population level. Several key reasons identified for the absence of an effect potentially provide generalisable lessons for social franchising programmes elsewhere. Funding: Merck Sharp and Dohme Limited

Serological prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 antibody among children and young age group (between 2 and 17 years) in India: An interim result from a large multicentric population-based seroepidemiological study

Background: Estimating seroepidemiolgical prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 antibody is an essential public health strategy. There is insufficient evidence of prevalence among those belonging to young age population in India. Objective: To compare the SARS-CoV-2 seropositivity rate between children and adults in selected sites from India. Materials and Methods: This was a multicentric population-based seroepidemiological study conducted in selected urban and rural areas of five sites selected from four states (Delhi, Odisha, Uttar Pradesh, Tripura) of India. Participants aged ≥1 year were included from different clusters of each area. Total serum antibody against SARS-CoV-2 virus was assessed qualitatively by using a standard enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) kit.Results: Data collection period was from 15 March 2021 to 10 June 2021. Total available data was of 4509 participants, of whom 700 were <18 years of age and 3809 were ≥18 years of age. The site-wise number of available data among those aged 2–17 years was 92, 189, 165, 146 and 108 for the sites of Delhi urban, Delhi rural, Bhubaneswar rural, Gorakhpur rural and Agartala rural area, respectively. The seroprevalence was 55.7% in the <18 years age group and 63.5% in the ≥18 years age group. The prevalence among female children was 58% and among male children was 53%. Conclusion: SARS-CoV-2 seropositivity rate among children was high and comparable to that of the adult population. Hence, it is unlikely that any future third wave by prevailing SARS-CoV-2 variant would disproportionately infect children 2 years or older