Identification of a threshold for biomass exposure index for chronic bronchitis in rural women of Mysore district, Karnataka, India.

Background & Objectives: Exposure to air pollution due to combustion of biomass fuels remains one of the significant risk factors for chronic respiratory diseases such as chronic bronchitis. There is a need to identify the minimum threshold level of biomass index that is significantly associated with chronic bronchitis. This study was undertaken to identify a threshold for biomass exposure index in a rural women population in Mysore district, south India.

Population based studies of cancer survival: scope for the developing countries.

Survival refers to the life of a person after diagnosis of disease, and survival studies have the objective of evaluating the overall performance of a group of patients in terms of quality and quantity of life after the diagnosis or treatment. Potentially there are two approaches for the study of population-based survival; direct (classical) and indirect. The direct approach refers to defining a cohort of patients and collecting follow-up information, whereas the indirect approach uses current data on incidence and mortality for estimating various segments of life.