Background: Maternal health is of paramount concern all over the world and has been a priority in India as well with the maternal health programs evolving over the time, addressing new arenas and overcoming challenges to reach the Maternal mortality ratio (MMR) target with quality. (1) In tribal areas various barriers in health seeking behavior are impediments towards maternal health.Methods: An explorative qualitative study was undertaken in a tribal area of Srinagar, Kashmir, which is a rural field practice area of the Department of Community Medicine Government Medical College, Srinagar. Focus group discussion (FGD) and in-depth interviews were conducted. Thematic analysis was used to analyze the FGD and in-depth interview data.Results: The data analysis generated following five themes: Theme 1: Perceptions and practices among tribal pregnant women in Faqir Gujree area. Theme 2: Socio-cultural influences, attitude and beliefs. Theme 3: Health system related barriers. Theme 4: Community related barriers. Theme 5: Cultural barriers among the pregnant women.Conclusions: There is a need of continuous behaviour change communication (BCC) with pregnant women and community members. In addition to addressing these issues, the health system related issues need to be addressed and improved in order to improve access to health care facilities by these pregnant women. Thus, a comprehensive tribal-sensitive health care system incorporating the above cultural issues is required to improve the health care access among these vulnerable ANC patients.

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Background: Cancer is one of the signicant causes of mortality worldwide. Cancer has been found to increase with acquisition of unhealthy dietary habits, smoking, sedentary life style etc. Objective: (1) To determine the number of cancer deaths in Mattan Block, Anantnag in the ve year period of 2015 -2020. (2)To nd out the prevalence of risk factors of cancer among the studied cases Materials and Methods:It was a descriptive analysis of the cancer related deaths in Mattan area conducted from 2015 to 2020. Whenever a cancer death occurred, a team of health inspector and an ASHAworker went to the family of the deceased where upon socio-demographic details and the details about risk factors were collected. The data was entered and analysed by using Microsoft Word 2010. Results: A total of 197 deaths were recorded. Most of the deaths were in the age group of above 60 years (40%) with male preponderance (65%). Maximum proportion of deaths was due to Gastrointestinal cancers (42%) followed by respiratory cancers (25.4%). About 56% of participants consumed dried vegetables at least twice a week. Salt tea was consumed 3-4 times a day by 35% of subjects, 45.2% of the subjects ate spicy food. About 53% of subjects were smokers. Conclusion: In this study we found that there's high intake of salt tea, dried vegetables and spicy foods among family members of the deceased persons. Smoking is also a menace in the area. Awareness generation among the people in the area needs to be created about the healthy food and life style

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Background: According to world health organization (WHO), exclusive breastfeeding (EBF) for the first 6 months of life is vital for optimal growth and development of a child. During this period, other liquids or breastfeeding substitutes should not be given to infants except for medicine or oral rehydration solution. Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted in the child health clinic of the department of community medicine, SKIMS. The study participants were mothers accompanying their infants coming for immunisation at the child health centre. A semi-structured, questionnaire was used to interview the mothers regarding breast feeding practices of their infants. The data was entered in Microsoft excel 2010 and analysed using SPSS Version 20. Results: The prevalence of EBF was 38.7%. Mixed feeding was received by 54% and 7.3% were formula-fed. Variables that were significantly associated with EBF include residence and mother’s education. Infants from rural area were more likely to be exclusively breastfed compared to those from urban area (OR=0.365; 95% CI=0.166-0.802; p=0.012). Mothers with up to 9 years of formal education were more likely to exclusively breastfed their children than those with more than 9 years of formal education (OR=0.300;95% CI=0.121-0.744, p=0.009). Conclusions: To ensure that the rate of EBF among the mothers is increased, all the stakeholders (spouse, family and government) as well as the people at work place must play their part to the best extent.

Background: COVID-19 pandemic has greatly affected the studies of students because of strict lockdown and closure of schools. As such students might have developed a lot of stress. Primary objective of this study was to find out the prevalence of generalized anxiety and depression during the COVID-19 pandemic among post-metric science students at Baramulla preparing for professional exams after senior secondary. Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted by distributing a pre-designed questionnaire among post-metric science students at Baramulla, Kashmir. Two tuition centres were randomly selected out of all the centres. All the students who returned filled questionnaires were included. Binary logistic regression was employed to find the association of anxiety and depression with independent variables. Results: Of the 173 participants, 91 were male (52.6%), the mean age was 16.9±1.4 years. For 81% of students, the pandemic had negatively affected their studies. About 16% (28) students had severe anxiety whereas 33% (57) had moderate anxiety and 14 students (8%) had severe depression whereas 23 (13%) had moderately severe depression. Those who did not perform routine exercise daily had higher odds of depression (AOR=2.86) and anxiety (AOR=2.3). Conclusions: Anxiety and depression levels among young students as high as found in this study cannot be ignored. A habit of routine exercise that may have been hampered during the current pandemic must be inculcated among youngsters for healthier mental health.

Background: Career is one of the factors that determine the future of an individual. Vocational dimension is an important one which may influence the health of a person. The objective of this study was to find out the career choices among secondary school students in district Baramulla of the Kashmir valley and to find out the career related self-reported stress among the students.Methods: It was a cross-sectional study carried out in 2018 for a period of one month. A self-administered pre-designed questionnaire was distributed among students of class 9th and 10th availing tuitions from a private tuition centre. The information was collected regarding the socio-demographic characteristics, career choices, other information related to career, and self-reported career related stress. The data was entered in Microsoft excel 2010 and analysed using SPSS version 23.Results: A total of 100 students participated. Mean age of the students was 15.19±0.84 years with 57% females. Ninety seven percent of the students had been thinking about their career for quite some time. Most of the students wanted to pursue MBBS (52%) followed by engineering (14%). Seventy-four percent of the students were of the opinion that career counselling was necessary. Nineteen percent of students were stressed about their career.Conclusions: Most of the students had already decided on their career but many were stressed and unsure about what path to choose. About 74% of the students were of the opinion that there should be career counselling and guidance available for the students so that they are able to take the right decisions at the right time.