Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has affected millions of people worldwide with far-reaching socio-economic implications in society. The adoption of preventive practices by the public remains the mainstay in reducing the spread of COVID-19 but there is a dearth of validated tools to assess such infection prevention practices related to pandemics. This study was conducted to develop and validate a questionnaire for the assessment of preventive practices against COVID-19 in the general population. It was done following a standardized protocol involving questionnaire development through literature review, focused group discussions, in-depth interviews, expert opinion, and pre-testing. This was followed by the validation of the questionnaire through a cross-sectional survey on 108 individuals from diverse backgrounds in New Delhi, India in July 2020. Exploratory factor analysis was used to evaluate construct validity. Internal consistency was assessed by Cronbach’s alpha coefficient. The developed questionnaire for assessing preventive practices consists of two sections: the first section of 18 items to evaluate preventive practices and the second section of 19 items for assessing various reasons for deficiencies in the preventive practices. The first section has good content validity (CVR=0.81 and S-CVI/Av =0.97) and internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha coefficient 0.82). Thus, this questionnaire is a valid and reliable tool for the comprehensive assessment of preventive practices and barriers related to the COVID-19 pandemic. It will be useful in assessing the preparedness of the public and will be helpful to policymakers in designing appropriate interventions for protection against COVID-19.

Millets play an important role in nutritional diet in many regions of the world. Despite the fact that millets are nutritionally better than other cereals, their involvement as food in diet is still generally limited to the poor and conventional people. Millets are good source of carbohydrates, energy and protein, fat iron, calcium and dietary fiber, which helps to prevent from many diseases like diabetes, cataract genesis and cardiovascular diseases. The environmental changes, water shortage, population increment, decreasing yields of major cereals, present a challenge to nutritionists and researchers to examine the potentials of production, processing and using another prospective food sources to end the poverty and hunger. The present paper reviews different postharvest technologies, processing and convenience food products prepared from millets.

The preferment for farm mechanization and advancement in industrialization has augmented the agro-industrial waste generation. The management of such numerous waste is a challenging and resource-intensive task. The current practices involve releasing this waste into the water bodies and open landfills which causes water, air, and soil pollution. These wastes have the potential to be used as a raw material for the development of value-added products, generation of renewable energy, extraction of food-use compounds, and manufacturing of packaging material. In the current scenario, agro-based materials are captivating the packaging industries toward the development of renewable, biodegradable, and sustainable packaging materials.These agro-based materials have great capability to replace petrochemical-based plastic materials in packaging industries because of their ample availability and biodegradability. Biodegradable packaging materials can be derived from agro-industrial waste either directly or by chemical synthesis or by genetically modified organisms.Agro-based polymers have a scintillating future for a wide range of applications in the food industry and pharmaceuticals, including advances in active and smart packaging with bio-functional characteristics. The present review comprehensively discusses the potential of different agricultural and agro-industrial wastes that can be used for extracting different natural biopolymers and their further use in manufacturing biodegradable food packaging. Practical ApplicationsInformation about the potential agricultural and agro-industrial waste suggests development, optimization, customization, and scale-up of production of biodegradable packaging material to promote its commercial usage. The major patents granted in biodegradable packing, properties of these materials, and the current status of their commercial availability will provide a compiled source of information, start-ups, innovation, research, and future advancements to the industrialists, students, researchers, and entrepreneurs. As an alternative to plastics, biodegradable packaging materials open opportunities for sustainable and environment-friendly solutions to industries and help in fulfilling their corporate social responsibility.

There is an expanding request from customers for regular antimicrobial substances that can be utilised for food safeguarding and replace the synthetic food additive. The antimicrobial development of precisely critical lactic acid microorganisms as starter cultures and various probiotics microorganisms is the guideline subject of an audit. The probiotics produce metabolites, for example, natural acids (lactic and acetic acid), hydrogen peroxide, ethanol, diacetyl, acetaldehyde, acetone, carbon dioxide, reuterin, reutericyclin, and bacteriocins, etc. The capability of utilising metabolite bacteriocin obtained from lactic acid bacteria, fundamentally utilised as bio preservatives, serves as an antimicrobial methodology for persistently expanding issues with antimicrobial obstruction. The probiotic microorganism is a useful field for the development of recombinant probiotics with antimicrobial properties. These offer the most encouraging process against the pathogen.

Objectives COVID-19 has affected thousands of health care workers worldwide. Suboptimal infection control practices have been identified as important risk factors. The objective of this study was to develop and validate a questionnaire to holistically assess the preventive practices of health care workers related to COVID-19 and identify the reasons for shortcomings therein. Methods The development of the questionnaire involved item generation through literature review, focus group discussions and in-depth interviews with health care workers and experts, followed by validation through expert opinion, pilot testing and survey. A cross-sectional survey on 147 healthcare workers was done using an online platform and/or interviews in August 2020 in New Delhi, India. Exploratory factor analysis using principal component extraction with varimax rotation was performed to establish construct validity. Internal consistency of the tool was tested using Cronbach's alpha coefficient. Results The developed questionnaire consists of two sections: Section A contains 29 items rated on a five-point Likert scale to assess preventive practices and Section B contains 27 semi-structured items to assess reasons for suboptimal practices. The first section has good validity (CVR = 0.87, S-CVI/Av = 0.978) and internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha coefficient = 0.85) Conclusions This questionnaire is a valid and reliable tool for holistic assessment of preventive practices and barriers to it among health care workers. It will be useful to identify vulnerable practices and sections in health care settings which would assist policymakers in designing appropriate interventions for infection prevention and control. This will also be useful in future pandemics of similar nature.