Background and Objectives: The aim of the paper was designed to know the relationship between complementary feeding, nutritional knowledge and behavior of mothers (IYCF practices) and nutritional status of children less than two years of age at Ambhanjyang Village Development Committee (VDC) of Makwanpur district.Material and Methods: The study was conducted in aforesaid VDC of Makwanpur districts with a total of 120 samples. The questionnaire used consisted of socio-demographic information, health profile, dietary behavior of the child such as amount of feeding, frequency of feeding, diversified food and attitude statements of mothers regarding nutritional knowledge. The nutritional status of the child was assessed on the basis of anthropometric measurements weight and height.Results: In this survey, 21.2 percent of the children were found to be moderately underweight while 5.8 percent of the children were severely underweight, 19.2 percent were moderately stunted while 15 percent were found severely stunted. Likewise, 10.8 percent of the children found moderately wasted and only 1 child was found to be severely wasted. No significant association was observed between various socio-economic factors, complementary feeding practices and nutritional status of a child.Conclusion: The prevalence of under nutrition, stunting and inadequate complementary feeding practices was observed in the study sample. Although no significant association was observed between various socio-demographic factors and nutritional status of a child, there is an immediate requirement of healthy knowledge and change in behavior of mothers of children about complementary feeding practices to prevent the deteriorating nutritional status of child.  Janaki Medical College Journal of Medical Sciences (2017) Vol. 5(1): 22-32

Health insurance poses a vital role in developing countries, to attain an equitable health outcome to all citizens by ensuring universal health coverage.  This study aims to assess the factors associated with non-enrollment in National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) in a setting of Nepal. A cross-sectional study was conducted among 492 households (246 non-enrolled and 246 enrolled) of Kaski district, Nepal from May to August 2020. Data were gathered from face-to-face interview. Data were entered in Epi data 3.1 and analysed by using statistical package for social sciences (SPSS16).  Descriptive and inferential statistics were performed to analyze the data. The household without elderly family members were 2.06 times less likely to enroll in the scheme (AOR=2.060, CI=1.141-3.721, p<0.01). Similarly, non-enrollment increases with the decreasing wealth quintile of the family (AOR=4.312, CI=1.881-9.880, p<0.001). Families who perceived their family health status as fair was more likely to join the scheme than those as a good health status. Households who had poor or average knowledge on the scheme were almost five times more likely to non-enrollment (AOR=4.641, CI=2.841-7.582, p <0.001). Factors that determine the non-enrolment in NHIS are households had without elderly family members, poor wealth quintile, self-perceived good health status and poor knowledge on NHIS. Effective coordination from different stakeholders need to increase the health insurance coverage and increase the health literacy through the wide coverage of health communication program.

Iodine deficiency is one of the world's leading causes of delay in cognitive growth of children, and remains a public health problem, particularly in low-income countries including Nepal. This current study used cross-sectional data to examine factors associated with iodine deficiency and household iodised salt among Nepalese children. The source of data was the 2016 Nepal National Micronutrient Status Survey (NNMSS). Household iodised salt and urinary iodine were examined (by using and multivariate statistical models that adjust for clustering and sampling weights) against a set of non-biological and eating habits factors of 1153 Nepalese children aged 6-9 years. The mean household salt iodine concentrations (in ppm) in the Eastern, Central,