Factors influencing delayed cancer health seeking in Meghalaya, Northeast India: A qualitative study.

Background & objectives India accounts for about seven per cent of the global cancer burden with the highest cancer incidence reported from the North-Eastern Region (NER), including Meghalaya. Despite this, there is paucity of published studies on health seeking behaviour for cancer in the NER. To address this gap, this study used a qualitative approach to document patient, caregiver and provider perspectives to understand the factors influencing healthcare seeking for cancers in Meghalaya.

An Optimization Tool to Formulate Diets within a Supplementary Nutrition Program for Children.

Background: In large supplementary feeding programs for children, it is challenging to create and sustain contextual, acceptable, nutritionally complete, and diverse supplemental foods. For example, the Indian Supplementary Nutrition Program (SNP) supplements the dietary intake of children, pregnant and lactating women, and severely acutely malnourished (SAM) children by offering dry take home rations (THRs) or hot cooked meals (HCMs) across India, but an optimization tool is necessary to create local contextual recipes for acceptable and nutritionally adequate products.

Objectives: This study aimed to create a linear programming (LP) model to optimize diverse food provisions for a SNP to meet its program guidelines, using locally available foods, within budgetary allocations.

Dietary diversity and its determinants among Khasi and Garo indigenous women (15 to 49 years) in Meghalaya, northeast India.

Background: Despite generally high agrobiodiversity, the Khasi and Garo indigenous people in Meghalaya have poor nutritional status among children and women.

Aim: To assess the dietary diversity of the Khasi and Garo indigenous women of reproductive age in Meghalaya, while examining the associated factors that affect it and to map the diversity of local food plants.

Methods: A dietary survey was conducted through 24-hour recall with 276 women from 28 villages of Meghalaya.

Medical pluralism among indigenous peoples in northeast India - implications for health policy.

Objectives: The government of India is promoting and increasing investment in the traditional medicine systems of Ayurveda, Yoga, Unani, Siddha and Homeopathy (AYUSH) in the northeast region of India. But there are few empirical data that support this policy decision. This study estimates the awareness and use of the different medical systems in rural Meghalaya, a state in north-east India with a predominantly ethnic tribal population.