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Introduction: Twentieth century heralded accelerated health transition which brought Non Communicable Diseases (NCDs) to the forefront of global public health challenges. Global trends suggest that these diseases to a large extent are associated with life styles like-unhealthy dietary intake, physical inactivity, tobacco use, high alcohol consumption and are on the rise Objectives: To assess the risk of Non Communicable Diseases among the community using Community Based Assessment Checklist. Methods: 266 patients over 30 years of age, presenting to OPD were assessed on their behaviour. Risk score on the risk factors like Age, Tobacco and Alcohol consumption, Physical inactivity, Waist measurement and Family history of NCDs were taken. Each risk factor has an allotted score from 0 to 2, a total score above 4 poses the individual at risk for developing NCDs. Results: 28% individuals had an average score above 4, 48% at 4 and 24 % had a score below 4. Conclusion:Populations having a higher level of score needs an urgent health intervention so that it ongoing burden of NCDs can be halted or controlled.

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BACKGROUND Paediatric dry eye disease is a major health concern. VDT's like laptops, tablets and smart phones are very commonly in use in children. Our study was done to evaluate percentage of DED in children and to evaluate association between VDT use and DED in children. METHODS A cross sectional study was conducted in ophthalmology OPD of a tertiary eye care centre for a duration of one year. All children between 6-16 years of age were included. Exclusion criteria included any ocular surgery in past 6 months or any acute ocular infections, extensive corneal or conjunctival pathology or eyelid pathologies. RESULTS The rate of Dry Eye Disease (DED) found in our study was 11.03%. The daily duration of smartphone use, and total daily duration of VDT use were associated with increased association of dry eye disease. 290 children in all were examined, out of which, 32 had dry eyes. 88 children were excluded according to exclusion criteria. 32 children had Dry Eye Disease and 170 children were taken as non DED group. 97 were males (48.02%) and 105 were females (51.98%) out of 202 children included in the study. There were 17 girls (53.12%) in the dry eye disease group and 78 girls (45.88%) in the non DED group. Smart phone usage per day in DED group was 3.15±0.97 hours while in non DED group it was 0.64±0.69 hours. Computer usage per day was 1.10 ± 0.53 hrs. in DED group and 0.66±0.34 hrs in non DED group. Hours used in watching television per day were 1.17±0.56 hours in DED group and 1.01±0.40 hrs in non DED group. CONCLUSIONS There is a strong association between VDT use and dry eye disease in paediatric population. Smart phone usage amongst children should be minimized.

Introduction: Water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) play an important role in decreasing the morbidity and mortality associated with poor WASH practices. Poor knowledge and awareness lead to an increase in communicable diseases. Objective: To assess and report the core indicators on sanitation and drinking water from urban slums using standardized WHO and UNICEF questionnaires. Materials and Methodology: The present observational cross-sectional study was conducted for 2 months i.e., from September 2019 to October 2019 in urban slums of Trikuta Nagar, a field practice area of Department of Community Medicine, GMC Jammu. Information was gathered from the head of the household as well as from other household members. About 50% of the population were selected randomly by lottery method i.e., 450 and consist of 112 households. However, at the time of the study, only 100 households were assessed because of the nonavailability of household members and some houses were locked at the time of the interview. Results: The study revealed that nearly 62% of families were of a joint type and most of the families were headed by male members. Around 82.5% of the slum members used water for drinking from improved source but only 21.5% of the household members used adequate water treatment method i.e., boiling. Besides, about 49.5% of the household members used improved sanitation facilities. Conclusion: Local administration needs to accelerate the process of supplying piped water connections to the underserved to improve their drinking water sources and also increase access to basic sanitation services at the household level.

Background: Family planning services like use of modern contraceptives help the couples to delay pregnancy and avoid the unwanted pregnancies. So, understanding the choice of contraceptives for the underserved couples is a key for provision of family planning services. Objective was to assess the contraceptive use among married women of urban slums using semi-structured questionnaire.Methods: The present observational cross-sectional study was conducted over a period of one month i.e. November 2019 in urban slums of Trikuta Nagar, which is a field practice area of Department of Community Medicine, GMC Jammu. Information was gathered from married females of reproductive age group. 50% of the population was selected randomly by lottery method i.e. 90 females. But at the time of study, only 85 married females could be interviewed.Results: The results show that the maximum females belonged to the 15-25 years age group followed by 26-30 years age group. More than 50% were literate, 42.35% had education upto primary level. More than 50% females were self-employed as they were labourers and rests were home-makers. The duration of marriage of most of the respondent women was 0-5 years and 44.70% of women had three living children. 65.88% women had one year gap between the first two pregnancies.Conclusions: The information, education and communication activities about the advantages of using contraceptives and its side-effects while using these contraceptives need to be increased so as to promote the awareness among females of the urban slums.

(r = 0.802, r = 0.662, r = 0.58 for males and r = 0.817, r = 0.749, r = 0.522

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