Health facility utilization and Healthcare-seeking behaviour of the elderly population in India.

Background: The increasing elderly population in India has generated an unmet need for healthcare services concerning them. To address some of those needs, the study aims to provide the current status of health facility utilization, health-seeking behaviour (HSB), and factors influencing them.

Methodology: Data from the Longitudinal Ageing Study in India (LASI)-Wave I was used to conduct multivariate analysis to assess the association between health facility utilization (inpatient and outpatient) and HSB across all age groups of the elderly.

Good public health logistics for resilient health systems during the pandemic: Lessons from Tamil Nadu.

The article highlights the importance of strengthening of public systems and the need for rapid scaling up of access to testing and to appropriate therapeutics in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic, to have in place robust public procurement systems for drugs and diagnostics. The paper draws lessons from the Tamil Nadu experience and validates the understanding that investing in public institutions is essential for rapid responsiveness to pandemics and other public health emergencies from both the ethical and health systems points of view.

Interventions to increase immunisation coverage among children 12-23 months of age in India through participatory learning and community engagement: pilot study for a cluster randomised trial.

Objective: With the aim of conducting a future cluster randomised trial to assess intervention impact on child vaccination coverage, we designed a pilot study to assess feasibility and aid in refining methods for the larger study.

Trial Design: Cluster-randomised design with a 1:1 allocation ratio.

Methods: Clusters were 12 villages in rural Uttar Pradesh.

Strategies to increase the demand for childhood vaccination in low- and middle-income countries: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

Objective: To investigate which strategies to increase demand for vaccination are effective in increasing child vaccine coverage in low- and middle-income countries.

Methods: We searched MEDLINE, EMBASE, Cochrane library, POPLINE, ECONLIT, CINAHL, LILACS, BDSP, Web of Science and Scopus databases for relevant studies, published in English, French, German, Hindi, Portuguese and Spanish up to 25 March 2014. We included studies of interventions intended to increase demand for routine childhood vaccination.

Association between maternal health literacy and child vaccination in India: a cross-sectional study.

Background: Education of mothers may improve child health. We investigated whether maternal health literacy, a rapidly modifiable factor related to mother's education, was associated with children's receipt of vaccines in two underserved Indian communities.

Methods: Cross-sectional surveys in an urban and a rural site.