Intersections of informal work status, gender and tuberculosis diagnosis: Insights from a qualitative study from an Indian setting.

BACKGROUND: There is evidence that more than one third of tuberculosis (TB) cases in India go undiagnosed each year and it is more pronounced among female patients. While there are studies available on the socioeconomic, cultural and gender-related dimensions of TB diagnosis delays among female patients in India, intersections of gender, informal work and diagnosis delays are not sufficiently studied. The present study aims to fill this gap by examining the TB diagnosis delay that are linked to the contingencies of working in informal arrangements for women from lower socio economic background. METHODS: The study draws on 80 qualitative in-depth interviews conducted among female patients from lower socio-economic background, who were working or recently stopped working in informal arrangements and undergoing Directly Observed Therapy, Short-course (DOTS) treatment in Bengaluru (India) city and 60 willing significant others of the patients. The participants were identified through a scoping survey that covered 188 female patients from 18 DOTS centres in the city. FINDINGS: Other than the already known reasons for the delay in TB diagnosis for women such as normalisation of symptoms, stigma and the gender-related discrimination leading to low prioritisation of women's illness, the present study identifies reasons related to work informality. These are normalisation of symptoms as workplace health problems; work related concerns that restricted formal help seeking; non TB specific narratives of symptoms, often incorrectly assumed to be work related health issues or comorbidities and thus confounding the early accurate diagnosis by the medical personnel and shifting between formal and informal systems of help-seeking. Further, the study found that mere knowledge of TB symptoms did not always translate to early diagnosis for patients from the lower socioeconomic groups working in informal arrangements due to the fear of losing work and wages owing to hospital visits. CONCLUSIONS: The workplace focus, especially the informal sector where a huge majority of India's workforce is employed, is notably absent in the TB elimination programme. The study indicates the need to adopt a comprehensive approach in the ongoing TB elimination programme in India in which family, living environment and workplace should be integral parts.

Linkages of Multi-Dimensional Vulnerabilities with Infant and Child Mortality Rates in India and Its Specific Regions: Are Social Determinants of Health still Relevant?

The present study investigated linkages between multiple socio-economic vulnerabilities with infant and child mortality in India and its specific regions. Data from the National Family Health Survey (2015-16) was used for calculating the key-outcome variables, namely infant mortality and child mortality. The effective sample size for the study was 259,627. Bivariate analysis and binary logistic regression analysis were employed to examine three dimensions of vulnerabilities such as education, wealth, and caste on infant and child mortality. Children born to women with multiple-vulnerabilities were more likely to die than those born to non-vulnerable women. Women who were vulnerable in all the three-dimensions were more likely to have their children die as infants than those who were not vulnerable in any dimensions (predicted probabilities; 0.054 vs 0.026). The predicted probability for child mortality was 0.063 for women who were vulnerable and 0.028 for non-vulnerable women.

Validation of whole genome sequencing from dried blood spots.

BACKGROUND: Dried blood spots (DBS) are a relatively inexpensive source of nucleic acids and are easy to collect, transport, and store in large-scale field surveys, especially in resource-limited settings. However, their performance in whole-genome sequencing (WGS) relative to that of venous blood DNA has not been analyzed for various downstream applications. METHODS: This study compares the WGS performance of DBS paired with venous blood samples collected from 12 subjects. RESULTS: Results of standard quality checks of coverage, base quality, and mapping quality were found to be near identical between DBS and venous blood. Concordance for single-nucleotide variants, insertions and deletions, and copy number variants was high between these two sample types. Additionally, downstream analyses typical of population-based studies were performed, such as mitochondrial heteroplasmy detection, haplotype analysis, mitochondrial copy number changes, and determination of telomere lengths. The absolute mitochondrial copy number values were higher for DBS than for venous blood, though the trend in sample-to-sample variation was similar between DBS and blood. Telomere length estimates in most DBS samples were on par with those from venous blood. CONCLUSION: DBS samples can serve as a robust and feasible alternative to venous blood for studies requiring WGS analysis.

Understanding Frailty, Functional Health and Disability among Older Persons in India: A Decomposition Analysis of Gender and Place of Resident.

BACKGROUND: We estimated and compared the differences in frailty, disability, and functional limitation among men and women, and among urban and rural dwellers. Further, this study also provides the analysis of key factors influencing frailty, functional limitation and disability among older persons in India. STUDY DESIGN: Two cross-sectional surveys. METHODS: WHO-SAGE (2007-10) and BKPAI-2011 (Building Knowledgebase for Population Ageing in India) (2007-10) were used. Oaxaca decomposition method was used to decompose the gender and place of resident differentials. Statistical software RStudio (Version 1.2.1335) was used to perform these analyses RESULTS: The decomposition model was able to explain 46.5%, 41.6% and 46.4% of the difference between frailty, functional limitation and disability among older persons respectively. The key factors, which significantly (P<0.05) explained the gap for both frailty and functional limitation, were Education (0.009 &1.24), working status (0.018 & 1.93), physical activity (0.001 & 0.15) and migration (0.018 & 1.98). Higher educational attainment (0.008 & 1.10) and wealth quintile (0.009 & 1.18) in urban areas might be a factors resulting in the lowering of frailty and functional limitations. CONCLUSION: The poorer functional health among older women can largely be explained by gender differentials in socioeconomic status and consequent empowerment (such as less control of their mobility and financial independence). This implies that efforts to improve gender disadvantages in earlier life stages might get reflected in better health for females in older age.

Relationship between infant and child mortality and fertility--an enquiry into goan women.

OBJECTIVE: This paper has an attempt to demonstrate the influence of childhood mortality on fertility behaviour of women in Goa. METHODS: The replacement effect of child mortality has been examined by comparing fertility behaviour of those who have and who have not experienced a child loss. The insurance effect has been studied through fertility differentials of those who perceived that the level of mortality has decreased in the region with the women who left it to be the otherwise. RESULT: It shows that the net effect of child mortality could be substantial. Women with personal experience of child loss and having pessimistic opinion about the level of mortality, produced, on an average, about two children more than similar women who never experienced a child loss and were optimistic about the level. The tendency to replace a dead child was found to cut across the level of literacy and religious background of women. CONCLUSION: The insurance effect on the other hand, was predominant among illiterate women.