• The prevalence of abdominal obesity in India is alarmingly high, with 40% of women and 12% of men affected.

• The National Family Health Survey-5 (2019-2021) data reveals that 5-6 out of 10 women aged 30-49 years are abdominally obese.

• A secondary data analysis of NFHS-5 reveals that this condition is more prevalent among older age groups, urban residents, wealthier sections, and non-vegetarians.

• In Telangana, 35-50% of women are abdominally obese, highlighting a significant public health concern. Abdominal obesity is linked to chronic illnesses such as diabetes, hypertension, and cardiovascular diseases.

• The study emphasizes the need for targeted interventions to promote physical activity and healthy dietary habits, especially in rural areas where economic transitions have reduced female workforce participation.

• Addressing these factors is crucial for mitigating the health risks associated with abdominal obesity and improving overall public health outcomes in India.

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• NITI Aayog’s Jal Utsav 2024, organized from November 6 to 20 in partnership with the Ministry of Jal Shakti, concluded successfully across 20 aspirational districts in 20 states to promote water conservation and awareness.

• The event included a variety of activities involving thousands of participants from diverse groups, including communities, schools, and self-help groups (SHGs).

• Key highlights of the Jal Utsav include:

1. Community Engagement: Sacred water asset ceremonies (Jal Bandhan), cleaning and inventorying local water resources, and tree planting under the Ek Ped Maa Ka Naam initiative.

2. School Activities: Essay writing, slogan competitions, and water quality testing demonstrations for students and teachers using field kits.

3. Awareness Drives: Campaigns on the link between water and health, addressing leakages, and promoting water conservation practices.

4. Student Exposure: Visits to local water supply assets to enhance understanding of resource management.

• States such as Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, and Madhya Pradesh witnessed remarkable participation.

• The Utsav emphasized water's importance as a shared community responsibility.

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• The challenges faced by the aging population who have contributed invariably to the society were addressed and effective strategies for their welfare were discussed in the conference by NHRC.

• Government’s dedication  and commitment and for their betterment was reaffirmed

• Challenges identified:

  • Discrimination based on age

  • Social isolation

  • Disparities in Healthcare

  • Insecurity related to Finance

• The  UNFPA Personnel’s discussion was focused on

  • Health care evaluation

  • Technology’s role

  • Social security

  • Gendered aspects of aging

  • Quality of life enhancemnet

• Recommendations:

  • Improving accessibility to quality health care

  • Anti discrimination law strengthening

  • Implementing measures to prevent elder abuse

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• The National Blindness and Visual Impairment Survey of India 2015-2019 reports that refractive error is the major cause of visual impairment in the 0-49 years age group.

• The WHO SPECS 2030 initiative aims to provide effective refractive error coverage, targeting an increase in global coverage by 40% by 2030 compared to 2021 levels.

• For the first time, a large-scale project is being planned in Assam through a joint collaboration between the WHO, the Government of Assam, and Sri Sankaradeva Nethralaya (SSDN), based in Guwahati, Assam.

• The project will follow the 'Integrated People-Centered Eye Care' approach, leveraging SSDN's strong community network to integrate services across various health sectors and engage communities and families.

• Members of the joint project convened on the 21st and 22nd of November, along with community and preventive ophthalmologists, to devise a strategic plan for rolling out the project in three districts of Assam to provide effective refractive care services.

• The Central government has directed all States and Union Territories to conduct ground-level surveys to identify gaps and expedite the construction of Individual Household Latrines (IHHLs) to mark World Toilet Day on November 19.

• The campaign "Hamara Shauchalay: Hamara Samman" links sanitation with human rights, emphasizing dignity and privacy, especially for women and girls, as a commitment towards attaining and sustaining Open Defecation Free (ODF) status.

• The initiative highlights the importance of grassroots workers, NGO partners, and local stakeholders in achieving comprehensive sanitation coverage.

• The campaign includes mobile units with educational content and a comic book featuring Chacha Chaudhary to raise sanitation awareness among children.

• Under the Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) Grameen, over 11.73 crore household toilets have been constructed, resulting in more than 5.57 lakh ODF Plus villages.

• The urban counterpart, Swachh Bharat Mission-Urban, has facilitated the construction of 63.63 lakh household latrines and over 6.36 lakh community and public toilets.

• The WHO reported in 2023 that unsafe water, sanitation, and hygiene are responsible for approximately 1,000 deaths of children under the age of five every day.

• Improved sanitation has had a positive economic impact, saving ODF villages an average of ₹50,000 per family annually on healthcare. Improved sanitation could potentially save 1.4 million lives annually.

• The global Diabetes burden has risen from 7% to 14% between 1990-2022, with the largest increase in LMICs.

• The report was a collaboration between NCD Risk FactOR Collaboration (NCD-RisC) and WHO.

• There are substantial global statistical differences in diabetes-related parameters, with diabetes burden in people aged 18 years or older accounting for 20% in WHO South-East Asia and Eastern Mediterranean regions.

• The South-East Asia, Eastern Mediterranean region and the African region have the lowest treatment coverage as well.

• This alarming rise in the global Diabetes burden can be attributed to:

  • Rising obesity prevalence

  • Physical inactivity due to sedentary lifestyles

  • Marketing of packaged and unhealthy food

  • Economic Hardship

• The WHO launched the global monitoring framework on diabetes, representing the need for more comprehensive steps to tackle the burden of diabetes.

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• A new study published in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics revealed that limiting sugar intake in the first 1000 days of life can reduce the lifelong risk of developing diabetes and hypertension.

• According to the WHO guidelines, the daily intake of free sugars should be less than 10% of the energy intake in adults and children.

• However, despite these guidelines, 85% of the children are found to consume sugar more than the recommended levels.

• The study was a natural experiment, wherein after the World War 2, for a few months, the UK government rationed food, with a limit of 40g of sugar daily.

• After a few years, in 1953, this rationing stopped, leading to a spike in the daily sugar intake from 40g to 80g.

• The key findings are as follows:

1. It was observed that this reduction in the sugar content led to a 35% reduced risk of diabetes and 20% reduced risk of hypertension.

2. This led to delay in onset of diabetes by 4 years and of hypertension by 2 years.

• The study highlights the need for primordial prevention of non-communicable diseases.

• The Climate and Health Solutions (CHS) India Conclave, co-hosted by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) and the Asian Development Bank (ADB), concluded with a call to action to integrate climate change considerations into public health strategies.

• Key Takeaways:

1.  Representatives from 19 Indian states and Union Territories participated in a key roundtable on "Climate Resilient and Responsive Health Systems and Infrastructure”.

2. The conclave recognized the need for adaptable infrastructure to handle extreme weather events.

3. The conclave emphasized the urgent need to address climate change and public health holistically.

4. Discussions focused on Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs), mental health, nutrition, and climate-ready healthcare workforce development.

5. Experts emphasized the need for innovative financing models, including blended finance, to invest in climate-resilient infrastructure and healthcare systems.

• The conclave served as a platform to develop concrete, actionable solutions, demonstrating India's commitment to tackling both climate change and health challenges.

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• Following a rise in the number of US travelers returning from Telangana, India, diagnosed with Chikungunya, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released the Level 2 Travel Advisory notice.

• The Advisory includes:

1. Symptoms of the disease- fever, joint pain, muscle ache, rashes.

2. Route of Transmission- Vector-borne- Mosquito (Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus) bites

3. Modes of Prevention-

•             Self protection- wearing long sleeve clothes, using insect repellants

•             Recommending Vaccination for all aged 18yrs and above travelling to areas of outbreak- with     restrictions for certain groups like pregnant women and immunosuppressed.

• The four levels of travel advisories are meant to inform travellers about the global health risks of traveller to different areas of the world and the level of precautionary measures required. 

• The recommendations are as follows-

  • Level 1 for practicing usual precautionary measures for a disease

  • Level 2 for practicing enhanced precautionary measures

  • Level 3 for recommending reconsideration for travel due to non-essential reasons

  • Level 4 to avoid all travel.

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• In response to a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) by Jaya Thakur, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) approved a policy to improve access to menstrual hygiene healthcare for schoolgirls in all government, government-aided and residential schools. 

• Following are the salient points of the directive -

  • Mainstream knowledge about menstrual hygiene within the government school system to help change attitudes towards menstrual hygiene.

  • Ensuring access to sanitary napkins for girls (10-19 years of age) between 6th-12th standards and proper environment friendly disposal mechanisms.

  • Providing separate toilet facilities for girls at all levels.

• The policy will thus aim to tackle the high dropout rates among adolescent girls due to lack of menstrual hygiene products and healthcare and curb the rate of infection and diseases caused due to unsanitary practices for the same.

• The results from an online survey carried out by the Indian Medical Association (IMA) on the perception of safety and experience of workplace violence against doctors, specially during night shifts, was released in the Kerala Medical Journal. 

• Following were the findings -

  • 3885 doctors sent their responses, with a majority of the respondents being junior doctors (Interns or Postgraduate trainees) (61%) and women (63%). Almost 71% of respondents were 30 years old or younger.

  • Almost half (45%) of respondents did not have access to a duty room at night while a third of those with access to a duty room, didn’t have an attached washroom (31%). 

  • Meanwhile, 63% of respondents had a duty room far (100-1000 metres) to very far (>1000 metres) from their ward.

  • 35% of respondents reported feeling unsafe (0-3) or very unsafe (0) during night duties while rating safety on a numeric rating scale of 0-10.

• The results also showed respondents felt more unsafe when they didn’t have access to a duty room at night compared to those who had. 

• While respondents with an attached washroom felt safer compared to those who didn’t have one in their duty room. 

• Respondents in government hospitals  and junior doctors felt more unsafe compared to those in private hospitals or senior doctors respectively. (p<0.0001)

• These results show a stark need for better safety measures to improve the overall working conditions of doctors.

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• Researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine sought to explore the relationship between sleep disorders and Motoric cognitive risk syndrome (MCR) incidence using Cox proportional hazard models that were adjusted for age, sex, education, geriatric depression, cognitive scores and comorbidity index.

• Motoric Cognitive Risk (MCR) syndrome is a condition preceding dementia, marked by slow walking speed and cognitive decline.

• The study inlcuded 445 New Yorkers aged 65 years and older who did not have dementia.

• Of these, 403 were MCR free at baseline and among these 36 developed MCR over a follow up period of 3 years.

• A higher incidence risk was found in the “poor sleepers” group (hazard ratio HR = 2.7 [1.2, 5.2]) but after adjusting for depressive symptoms this association was not found to be significant (adjusted hazard ratio [aHR] = 1.6 [0.7,3.4]).

• In fully adjusted models, sleep related daytime lethargy was found to be significantly associated with risk of developing MCR in the study population  (aHR = 3.3 [1.5–7.4]). 

• MCR developed in 35.5% of participants who reported extreme daytime sleepiness, as compared to 6.7% of those who did not.

• The authors also concluded that poor quality of sleep was significantly associated with incident MCR but not prevalent MCR(OR = 1.1 [0.5,2.3])

• The study provides evidence on the effect of sleep quality on cognitive impairment, particularly among older age groups. Further studies are required to elaborate on the effect on the quality of life.

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