Background: Child malnutrition still remains a major cause of childhood morbidity and mortality in Bangladesh. This study aims to determine the prevalence and identify the associated risk factors of child malnutrition in Bangladesh using multilevel logistic regression model on data from the Bangladesh Demographic and Health Survey (BDHS), 2014. Methods: A total sample of 6965 children aged 0-59 months was extracted from BDHS 2014. We performed descriptive analysis and multilevel generalized linear regression analysis with clustered data structure. Results: Our findings show that among children the prevalence of moderate and severe values was respectively: 25 and 12% for stunting; 11 and 3.1% for wasting; 25 and 7.9% for underweight. The probability of stunting increased with age, with highest rate among children aged 36-47 months, which was significantly higher than children aged less than 6 months (OR = 6.71, 95% CI = 4.46, 10.10). Female children are found to be 11% less likely to be stunted than male children (OR = 0.89, 95% CI = 0.78, 1.02). Children with birth interval less than 24 months were significantly more likely to be stunted than children of first birth by 36% (OR = 1.36, 95% CI = 1.11, 1.67). Mothers with a normal BMI were 16% less likely to have children with stunting compared to mothers who are underweight (OR = 0.84, 95% CI = 0.76, 0.93). Other factors which were associated with a higher risk of stunting included parents with lower educational levels, children from the poorest wealth index, and mothers aged less than 20 years as first birth. Conclusion: Government and non-government organization should generate effective program to aware women of reproductive age about adverse effect of short birth interval, and to aware parents about standard height and weight according to age and gender of children. Overall, necessary steps may be taken to make people educated and to reduce household wealth inequality to improve nutritional status of children.

No abstract

BackgroundBecause of the rapid increase of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) and high burden of healthcare-related financial issues in Bangladesh, there is a concern that out-of-pocket (OOP) payments related to illnesses may become a major burden on household. It is crucial to understand what are the major illnesses responsible for high OPP at the household level to help policymakers prioritize key areas of actions to protect the household from 100% financial hardship for seeking health care as part of universal health coverage. ObjectivesWe first estimated the costs of illnesses among a population in urban Bangladesh, and then assessed the household financial burden associated with these illnesses. MethodA cross-sectional survey of 1593 randomly selected households was carried out in Bangladesh (urban area of Rajshahi city), in 2011. Catastrophic expenditure was estimated at 40% threshold of household capacity to pay. We employed the Bayesian two-stage hurdle model and Bayesian logistic regression model to estimate age-adjusted average cost and the incidence of household financial catastrophe for each illness, respectively. ResultsOverall, approximately 45% of the population of Bangladesh had at least one episode of illness. The age-sex-adjusted average medical expenses and catastrophic health care expenditure among the households were TK 621 and 8%, respectively. Households spent the highest amount of money 7676.9 on paralysis followed by liver disease (TK 2695.4), injury

In the present study, surface water samples were collected during three seasons (summer, monsoon and winter) from four different study sites (T-dam, Padma Garden, I-dam and Talaimari point) of Padma River at Rajshahi, Bangladesh, and various physicochemical and bacterial parameters were analyzed based on standard methods. Significant differences (p < 0.05) in physicochemical parameters were observed among the seasons and sites except for water temperature. However, except for fecal coliform, other bacterial parameters such as total heterotrophic bacteria, total coliform and Vibrio cholerae counts showed significant differences (p < 0.05) among the seasons, while difference among the sites was insignificant (p < 0.05). The result also showed that all the bacterial parameters were maximum during summer and minimum during monsoon season. Untreated sewage and industrial effluents together with reduced water flow and water level were found to increase bacterial counts during summer at Site 2 (Padma Garden). Although the present situation is not serious and alarming enough, the river water requires intensive monitoring to improve its quality for better and sustainable management.

Arsenic (As) toxicity and diabetes mellitus (DM) are emerging public health concerns worldwide. Although exposure to high levels of As has been associated with DM, whether there is also an association between low or moderate As exposure and DM remains unclear. We explored the dosedependent association between As exposure levels and hyperglycemia, with special consideration of the impact of demographic variables, in 641 subjects from rural Bangladesh. The total study participants were divided into three groups depending on their levels of exposure to As in drinking water (low, moderate and high exposure groups). Prevalence of hyperglycemia, including impaired glucose tolerance (IGT) and DM was significantly associated with the subjects' drinking water arsenic levels. Almost all exposure metrics (As levels in the subjects' drinking water, hair and nails) showed dose-dependent associations with the risk of hyperglycemia, IGT and DM.