Impact of modular training on tobacco control on the knowledge of health workers in two jurisdictions of northern India.

BACKGROUND: National Tobacco Control Programme was launched in India in year 2007‑08. It was realized that community health workers can play an important role of agents for positive change to bring down the tobacco morbidity and mortality in the country. Keeping this in view, a health worker guide was developed by the Government of India, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (GOI) in collaboration with The Union South‑East Asia (The Union) in the year 2010. The guide provides the information needed by the most basic level of health workers to effectively address the problem of tobacco use in the community. A modular training was conducted in two jurisdictions in India (namely, Chandigarh and Hamirpur (Himachal Pradesh)) to assess the usefulness of the guide as training material for community health workers in undertaking tobacco control activities at community and village levels. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A total of 271 participants were trained, which included 133 from Chandigarh and 138 from Hamirpur. The pre and post‑training assessment of knowledge of health worker was done. RESULTS: There was marked increase in post‑test scores as compared to the pretest scores. The health workers scoring more than 60% increased from 40% in the pretest to over 80% in the post‑test. Only three workers had a post‑test score of less than 30% against 54 workers in the pretest. CONCLUSION: The understanding on tobacco control had increased significantly after the training in each group. It is strongly recommended that such training should be replicated to all community health workers across all the states in India.

Public opinion about smoking and smoke free legislation in a district of North India.

Context: A growing number of cities, districts, counties and states across the globe are going smoke-free. While an Indian national law namely Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products Act (COTPA) exists since 2003 and aims at protecting all the people in our country; people still smoke in public places. Aim: This study assessed knowledge and perceptions about smoking, SHS and their support for Smoke-free laws among people residing in Mohali district, Punjab. Materials and Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted in Mohali district of Punjab, India. A sample size of 1600 people was obtained. Probability Proportional to Size technique was used for selecting the number of individuals to be interviewed from each block and also from urban and rural population. Statistical Analysis Used: We estimated proportions and tested for significant differences by residence, smoking status, literacy level and employment level by means of the chi-square statistics. Statistical software SPSS for Windows version 20 was used for analysing data . Results: The overall prevalence of current smoking among study participants was 25%. Around 96% were aware of the fact that smoking is harmful to health, 45% viewed second-hand smoke to be equally harmful as active smoking, 84.2% knew that smoking is prohibited in public places and 88.3% wanted the government to take strict actions to control the menace of public smoking. Multivariate logistic regression analysis showed that people aged 20 years and above, unemployed, urban, literate and non-smokers had significantly better perception towards harms of smoking. The knowledge about smoke free provisions of COTPA was significantly better among males, employed individuals, urban residents, and literate people. Conclusions: There was high knowledge about deleterious multi-dimensional effects of smoking among residents and a high support for implementation of COTPA. Efforts should be taken to make Mohali a "smoke-free district".

Central actions of angiotensin II on heart rate and blood pressure in mongrel dogs.

Angiotensin II is produced physiologically in response to renal ischaemia due to hypotension. It's effect on heart rate and blood pressure were studied on anaesthetised mongrel dogs. Angiotensin II was given in different concentrations, by intravenous, intraarterial in carotid artery and intracerebroventricular routes. Cervical vagotomy and carotid sinus inactivation were done is abolish the reflex inhibition produced by baroreflexes. Rise of B.P. is due to mainly peripheral vasopressor action of angiotensin II, however it is shown to have a central component as well. This is demonstrated by ICV injections. Tachycardia due to central action is also demonstrated in this study. Both actions are significant. This study also confirm the earlier findings that angiotensin II passes the blood brain barrier.