Community Medicine department had arranged workshop on Adolescent Health for parents at Anandalaya School at Anand on 21st July 2016.The workshop was conducted by Dr Uday Shankar Singh, Dr Dinesh Kumar, Dr Manisha Gohel from Community Medicine department and Dr Bharti Sharma from Psychiatric department

On the 4th of July, 2016 a dialogue was held between doctors and adolescents focusing on the sexual and reproductive health among youths. The dialogue was held in the premises of VardhamanMahavir Medical College, New Delhi and had amongst the speakers Dr. Jugal Kishore, Professor and head, VMMC, Youth Sexual and Reproductive Health, Dr. Sujata, CMO, OBS and Gyne, Safdarjung Hospital, Sex Among Youth and Dr. K.R Meena, Department of pediatrics and reproductive health and services, VMMC.

Reproductive health is one of the very important aspects of human health. Process of development of reproductive system is viewed differently than other systems by parents and society. Hence, children may remain unattended leading to experimentation and exploitation. Educating child about these changes has met with controversies such as necessity of this education, its contents, person imparting it and if it is culturally appropriate, etc. There is a global need to resolve these controversies and design a program to educate adolescents so that they can deal with their developing sexuality effectively and enjoy healthy reproductive life. This article provides a review of current challenges in sexuality education and provides an outlook for improvements going into the future.

Background: Child disability is an emerging global health priority. There is lack of statebased analysis of all types of disabilities in children and adolescents in India. Objective: To measure the prevalence of disability and describe the types of disability by gender, advancing age, states and geographical regions in Indian population aged 19 years and below. Methods: Disability data restricted to age 19 years and below of the 2011 Census of India was analyzed. Disability rates per 100,000 children and adolescent population and age-adjusted disability rates were calculated. Results: Disability rate of 1640 per 100,000 was observed in those aged 19 years and below in India in 2011. Nine Indian states and Union Territories had disability rates above the national average. Of the total disability, hearing, seeing and movement related disabilities were 20, 18 and 13% respectively.Disability rates increased with the advancement of age; highest disability rate of 1926 per 100,000 in those aged 10 to 19 years. Males had higher disability rates compared to females (1754 vs. 1516 per 100,000). The disability rates were higher in urban than in rural areas (1805 vs. 1582 per 100,000). Conclusion: There was 1.6% of those aged 19 years and below in India with either physical or mental disability. Further studies on the underlying causes and prevention strategies are essential to reduce the burden of disability in the population aged 19 years and below.

This study aims to understand the variation of condom attitude in high-risk settings and how far condom use varies with varying sexual partners. The study also explores the relationship between interface of alcohol consumption and condom use using ASHRA data collected in 2007-08 among young men in low-income communities of Mumbai. Health Belief Model and AIDS Risk Reduction Model provided the theoretical orientation for this research. Among those young men who reported wife as their sexual partner, 70% and 3% in the high-risk setting are having moderate and high positive attitude towards condom use but this attitude becomes very low when the sexual partner is girlfriend or others. Young men are five times more likely to indulge in risky sexual behavior under the effect of alcohol. Though they have high positive attitude towards condom use, but in practical situation condom use is less in the last sex among both married and unmarried men rather than those who have low positive attitude towards condom use. So relationship between knowledge of the effectiveness of condom and its actual use is a major contradiction and challenge in this setting.

Objective: To assess the longitudinal relationship between tobacco use by family members, peers and role models on tobacco use behavior of adolescents living in low socio-economic communities of Delhi, India. Methods: Project ACTIVITY (Advancing Cessation of Tobacco in Vulnerable Indian Tobacco Consuming Youth), a community-based cluster-randomized trial. Adolescents (n=1720) belonging to low socio-economic status from control communities of Project ACTIVITY, including resettlement colonies and adjacent Jhuggi-Jhopris (JJs), who were non-tobacco users at baseline and participated in all the three repeated surveys(2009, 2010, 2011). The main outcome measure in the study was current tobacco use at the endline. Tobacco use by family members, friends and role models was measured at baseline. Results: The influence of tobacco use by friends on the onset of youth tobacco use was significant (OR=2.68, 95% CI=1.27-5.64) and by brother was even stronger (OR=4.36, 95% CI=1.66-11.45). Both effects were consistent across gender, age group and were also stronger than the effects of tobacco use by father (OR=1.51, 95% CI=0.70-3.23). Conclusion: Thus, study highlights the need to engage siblings and peers in efforts to prevent tobacco use and promote tobacco cessation among adolescents in resourcepoor, slum communities in India.

Background: Human papillomavirus (HPV)-associated cervical cancer is the second-most common cancer in women worldwide, and India accounts for one third of global cervical cancer deaths. (However, reduction of mortality/morbidity is due to cervical cancer’s early detection and treatment of cervical precancerous lesions.) Though youth are the prime candidates for prophylactic HPV vaccination, several studies have shown that they had very little knowledge about HPV vaccination. We could not find any documented study in Manipur regarding knowledge on cervical cancer and HPV infection. Hence this study was undertaken to determine the knowledge on cervical cancer, HPV infections, HPV vaccine among the college students and to assess their attitude towards vaccination and to determine the association between knowledge on cervical cancer and HPV infection with selected socio-demographic variables such as age, sex, etc. Methods: Cross-sectional study. Setting: colleges providing graduates between 12th Jan16th Feb 2015. Sixteen colleges were selected using convenience sampling from three districts of Manipur. A self-administered questionnaire was used for data collection among 1059 college students. Health talks were given after collecting baseline data. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics such as mean (SD) and percentages. Chi square test and t-test were used for analysis. P-value of <0.05 was considered as statistically significant. Results: Mean age of the respondent was 20.21 ± 1.71. Only 41, 15 and 12% of the respondents have heard of cancer cervix, HPV infection and HPV vaccine respectively. One-third of the respondents have no knowledge about risk factors and preventive measures against cancer cervix. Majority of the respondents (96.7%) wanted to have HPV vaccination. However, one-fourth of them still have the opinion that it is safe to have multiple sexual partners after vaccination (P-value <0.03). Female had higher mean knowledge score of cancer cervix as compared to male (P value <0.04).

Age at menarche is a significant indicator of growth and sexual maturation in girls. During adolescence, anthropometry provides a tool for monitoring and evaluating the hormone-mediated changes in growth and reproductive maturation. Menarche is defined as the first menstrual period. It is considered to be the most obvious sign of puberty in girls. It has been regarded in many cultures as a transitional step to womanhood. This is a cross-sectional study which is done on 1009 school girls who belonged to Salboni block of district Paschim Medinipur of West Bengal, India.To study effect of nutrition on age at menarche, different anthropometric measurements were applied. The study had been done on 10-19 adolescents school girls (1009). For this study, different types of anthropometric measurements were taken like weight and height. Height is measured through anthropometric rod, and weight by a weighing machine. Triceps and biceps Skinfolds are taken by skinfold caliper. Structured questionnaires were followed to know details of socio-economic status. Height was measured to the nearest 0.1 cm and weight to the nearest 0.5 kg. Each subject was weighed with minimum clothing and no footwear. Among studied sample,896 girls had experienced menarche. Their mean age at menarche was 11.88 years (1.23). To compare anthropometric variable premenarchel and postmenarcheal girls that mean anthropometric measurement of premenarcheal girls more higher than post menarcheal girls in studied girls minimum age at menarche is 9 years and maximum age at menarche was 17 years. Body mass index increased progressively from 13 years to 19 years of age where overall increase was 1.89 kg/m2 from 10 to 19 years which was statistically significant with age (F=17.3, P<0.001), percent body fat was statistically significant with age (F=38.7, P<0.001). Nutritional status was betterin postmenarcheal girls than in premenarcheal girls. The study represents typical differential rates of positive change in different body composition measures after the attainment of menarche.