Silvia Zia Islam

Factors associated with awareness, attitudes and practices regarding common eye diseases in the general population in a rural district in Bangladesh: The Bangladesh Population-based Diabetes and Eye Study (BPDES)

Background To assess the awareness, attitudes, and practices associated with common eye diseases and eye care utilization in a rural district of Bangladesh. Methods Data were collected using a multilevel cluster random sampling technique from 3104 adults aged ≥30 years from the Banshgram union with a questionnaire assessing the awareness, attitudes and practice about diabetes and common eye diseases, educational attainment, socio-economic status, and medical history. Results Participants were aged between 30 and 89 years with a mean (SD) age of 51 (12) years and 65% were female. The majority of participants had heard of cataracts (90%), trachoma (86%) and Pterygium (84%), yet only 4% had heard of diabetic retinopathy (DR), 7% of glaucoma and 8% of Age-related macular degeneration (AMD). However, 58% of participants did not know vision loss could be prevented. Factors associated with lower awareness regarding common eye diseases were increasing age, lack of formal schooling, and lower socio-economic status. A lower proportion (57%) of people with no schooling compared to those who had attained at least secondary school certificate education (72%) reported that they knew that vision loss could be prevented (p<0.001). Overall 51% of people had heard of at least six (67%) out of nine items relating to awareness of common eye diseases. This included 41% of participants aged 65 years or older compared to 61% of those aged 30–35 years (p<0.001). Only 4% had an eye check at least once a year and higher education and better SES were associated with higher frequency of eye checks. Conclusions In rural Bangladesh awareness of cataract, trachoma and pterygium was good but limited in relation to the potentially blinding conditions of glaucoma, DR, and AMD. The results show a large gap between public awareness and treatment practices about common eye diseases. Public health promotion should be designed to address these knowledge gaps.

Factors Associated with Disability in Rural Bangladesh: Bangladesh Population-Based Diabetes and Eye Study (BPDES)

Background To assess factors associated with disability in a rural district of Bangladesh. Methods Using a population-based systematic sampling technique, data were collected from 3104 adults aged ≥ 30 years from the Banshgram union of Narail district. Data collected included an interviewer administered questionnaire to report physical disabilities including impairment that prevents engagement with paid work, visual, hearing, and mobility as well as mental disabilities. Socio-demographic and anthropometric factors including educational attainment and body mass index, as well as clinical factors such as blood pressure, and fasting blood glucose were also collected. Binary and multinomial logistic regression techniques were used to explore the association of various socio-demographic and clinical factors with disability. Results The mean (SD), minimum and maximum ages of the participants were 51 (12), 30 and 89 years. Of total participants, 65% were female. The prevalence of disability varied from 29.1% for visual impairment (highest) to 16.5% for hearing, 14.7% for movement difficulties and 1.6% (lowest) for any other disability that prevented engagement with paid work. Overall, the prevalence of a single disability was 28.6% and that of two or more disabilities was 14.7%. Older age, gender (female), lower socio-economic status (SES), and hypertension were associated with a higher prevalence of most of the disability components. The prevalence of hearing problems (24.5% vs. 13.3%, p<0.001) and movement difficulties (24.9% vs. 13.0%, p<0.001) was significantly higher among lower-income participants than their higher-income counterparts after controlling for age. Prevalence of visual impairment (54.6% vs. 9.2%, p<0.001), hearing (32.2% vs. 6.7%, p<0.001) and movement difficulties (29.2% vs. 5.5%, p<0.001) were significantly higher in people of aged 60 years or older than those aged 30–34 years. After multivariate adjustment, the prevalence of single disability (prevalence risk ratio [PRR] 1.25, 95% CI: 1.09–1.42, p<0.001), and multiple disabilities (PRR 1.41, 95% CI 1.14–1.73, p<0.001) was higher among females than males. The prevalence of single disability and multiple disabilities was respectively 21% (PRR 1.21, 95% CI: 1.02–1.42, p<0.001) and 88% (PRR 1.88, 95% CI: 1.38–2.54, p<0.001) higher among participants with low educational attainment (primary level or less) than those with at least a secondary level of education. Conclusions In rural Bangladesh, the prevalence of disability is high. Public health programs should target those of low SES, older age, and female participants and aim to provide necessary supports in order to bridge disability-related inequities.

Analysis of Arsenic Concentrations and Correlation in Water, Soil and Aurum by Neutron Activation Analysis Technique: A Case Study in Bagerhat, Bangladesh

Arsenic concentrations were measured in water, soil and arum (vegetables) samples using the Neutron Activation Analysis method and a correlation between arsenic concentrations in the samples was investigated. The case study at Bagerhat, Bangladesh revealed that almost all the water samples were contaminated by a hazardous level of arsenic that exceeding the World Health Organization recommended value of 0.05xa0mg/L for Bangladesh. Arsenic concentration of all the water samples ranged from 0.09 to 0.87xa0mg/L. The concentrations in soil and aurum samples were found to be in the range of 2.22–35.21 and 0.07–0.73xa0mg/kg, respectively. A positive correlation between arsenic concentrations in soil and water samples was observed. Aurum sample was found to be contaminated by arsenic to a harmful level if the corresponding water sample was also highly contaminated.

Volatility and co-movement: an analysis of stock markets behavior of selected emerging and developed countries

Financial markets around the world suffer significantly during the GFC and European debt crisis. Although the GFC is over, but the after-effect is still visible in most of the developed and emerging countries and stock markets remained volatile. In this paper, we analyse historical stock market volatility and co-movement behavior of three emerging markets and three developed economies from January 2001 to December 2012. We investigate whether the stock market volatilities and co-movement behaviors are correlated and affected by the GFC during the observation period. Our analysis of stock market behavior and co-movement analysis includes the standard historical volatility model and R-square estimates. We use the standard historical volatility model followed by Jones et al. (1998), Andersen and Bollerslev (1997) and Andersen and Bollerslev (1998); and the R-square metrics were suggested by Morck et al. (2000), Khandaker and Heaney (2009) and Alves et al. (2010). The selection criteria for the developed economies include geographical location, availability of stock return data and size of the equity market; and emerging markets are taken from the emerging Asian markets based on their recent market performance, growth rate and market capitalisation. We find evidence that the sample of emerging markets, exhibits higher stock market volatility during the sample period and these volatilities increases during the GFC. There is also evidence that the sample emerging countries exhibit a higher level of stock market co-movement behavior, and these markets were highly synchronous during the GFC. For example, China exhibits higher stock return co-movement behavior and, this behavior increase during the GFC. Further, we do not find any evidence of a statistically significant correlation coefficient between the volatility measures and stock return co-movement measures for our sample developed countries. However, these measures are statistically significant for the emerging country group. The example includes China and Malaysia. Our result provides evidence that stock market co-movement behavior or the R-squared matrix captures somewhat different aspects of stock market behavior other than the stock market volatility for the developed economies. Therefore, it is concluded that both these market models capture somewhat different aspects of stock market behavior and should be carefully used.