Publications by authors named "Aslesh Ottapura Prabhakaran"
Article Synopsis
- The study estimates the economic impact of acute respiratory illnesses (ARIs) on adults aged 60 and older in India, focusing on costs associated with medical care and effective preventive measures like vaccines.
- A total of 6016 participants were monitored over 1.5 years, revealing that pneumonia cases incurred higher costs, with a significant portion being indirect costs due to lost productivity.
- The findings suggest urgent public health interventions are needed to reduce the burden of ARIs, particularly among vulnerable older adults, as annual costs average around $29.5 per person.
There is limited surveillance and laboratory capacity for non-influenza respiratory viruses in India. We leveraged the influenza sentinel surveillance of India to detect other respiratory viruses among patients with acute respiratory infection. Six centers representing different geographic areas of India weekly enrolled a convenience sample of 5-10 patients with acute respiratory infection (ARI) and severe acute respiratory infection (SARI) between September 2016-December 2018.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPurpose: We describe here a multicentric community-dwelling cohort of older adults (60 years of age) established to estimate incidence, study risk factors, healthcare utilisation and economic burden associated with influenza and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) in India.
Participants: The four sites of this cohort are in northern (Ballabgarh), southern (Chennai), eastern (Kolkata) and western (Pune) parts of India. We enrolled 5336 participants across 4220 households and began surveillance in July 2018 for viral respiratory infections with additional participants enrolled annually.
Background: The isolation from mainstream development activities, together with poverty and inaccessibility to health facilities made the tribal communities specifically vulnerable to various health problems.
Objectives: This study aimed to compare the utilization of antenatal care, immunization, and supplementary nutrition services by tribal and nontribal mothers and its correlates in the selected districts.
Materials And Methods: The study was a comparative cross-sectional study.
Background: Drug resistant tuberculosis (DR-TB) centers admit patients with DR-TB for initiation of treatment and thereby concentrate the patients under one setting. It becomes imperative to assess the compliance of DR-TB centres to national airborne infection control (AIC) guidelines and explore the provider perspectives into reasons for unsatisfactory compliance.
Methods: This mixed methods study (triangulation design) was carried out across all the six DR-TB centers of Karnataka state, India, between November 2016 and April 2017.
Background: Resource limitation, staff deficiency, and variability in patient inflow contribute to emergency department (ED) overcrowding, associated with delayed care, poor care, and poor patient outcomes. This study seeks to describe and analyze patient inflow variability and staffing trends on Sundays versus other days in a tertiary academic ED from South India.
Methods: Patient inflow and staffing data for 2 years were collected from hospital records, cross-checked, and statistically analyzed using Epi Info 7.
Introduction: Poverty and poor nutrition are associated with the risk of developing tuberculosis (TB). Socioeconomic factors may interfere with anti-tuberculosis treatment compliance and its outcome. We examined whether providing nutritional support (monthly supply of rice and lentil beans) to TB patients who live below the poverty line was associated with TB treatment outcome.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Healthcare professionals are expected to have knowledge of current basic and advanced cardiac life support (BLS/ACLS) guidelines to revive unresponsive patients.
Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted to evaluate the current practices and knowledge of BLS/ACLS principles among healthcare professionals of North-Kerala using pretested self-administered structured questionnaire. Answers were validated in accordance with American Heart Association's BLS/ACLS teaching manual and the results were analysed.
Prevalence of hypercholesterolaemia among adults aged over 30 years in a rural area of north Kerala, India: a cross-sectional study.
WHO South East Asia J Public Health
April 2016
Background: Cardiovascular disease is a leading cause of death in India. In order to reduce the burden of the disease, it is important to know the level of modifiable risk factors in the population. The aim of this study was to estimate the prevalence of hypercholesterolaemia and associated factors among the population aged over 30 years in a rural area in north Kerala, India.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Kerala is a highly urbanized state in India and interstate migrant laborers working there forms a marginalized community. It was generally perceived that use of tobacco and alcohol was high among the workers, but there are no epidemiological studies assessing the actual burden.
Objectives: To estimate the prevalence of use of tobacco and also the prevalence of oral mucosal lesions associated with such use consumption among the adult male interstate migrant workers in North Kerala.