The field of microfinance emerged in the developing world as a vehicle to provide financial services to poor segments of population is gradually being seen as a profitable business opportunity. In the initial stages of development, these activities were perceived to be done with a service agenda. As the micro finance institutions (MFIs) began to mature, they started facing performance dilemma, ...

OBJECTIVE To determine the prevalence and pattern of smoking amongst Pakistanis. SAMPLING DESIGN: A two stage stratified sample design was adopted for the survey, Primary Sampling Units (PSU's) and Secondary Sampling Units (SSU's). SETTING Urban and Rural, Pakistan 1990-94. SUBJECTS Stratified systematic sample of 9441 males and females aged 15 years and above. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Smoke...

Background. We assessed community knowledge, attitudes, and practices on malaria as well as acceptability to indoor residual spraying. Material and Methods. A cross-sectional survey was done in a community in Geita district (northwest Tanzania). Household heads (n = 366) were interviewed Results. Knowledge on malaria transmission, prevention, and treatment was reasonable; 56% of respondents ass...

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and positron emission tomography (PET) were used to map brain activation during language tasks. While previous studies have compared performance between alphabetic literate and illiterate subjects, there have been no such data in Chinese-speaking individuals. In this study, we used fMRI to examine the effects of education on neural activation associa...

BACKGROUND In low income countries, acute malnutrition continues to be the most important risk factor for illnesses and deaths. The aim of this study was to assess the determinants of acute malnutrition among children aged 6-59 months. METHODS A facility based unmatched case control study was employed on 420 (140 cases and 280 controls) children aged 6-59 months with their caregivers between ...

OBJECTIVE To assess awareness of Saudi psychiatric patients of their illnesses and medications at Prince Sultan Military Medical City (PSMMC). METHODS A cross sectional study was conducted at the outpatients clinics of PSMMC, Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia from January to December 2012. The study included 647 patients undergoing treatment for their psychiatric illnesses. The patients were in...

Evidence suggests that education protects from dementia by enhancing cognitive reserve. However, this may be influenced by several socio-demographic factors. Rising numbers of dementia in India, high levels of illiteracy and heterogeneity in socio-demographic factors provide an opportunity to explore this relationship. Objective To study the association between education and age at dementia o...

Objective : 1) To study the occurrence of domestic violence and examine the link between education and occupation on abuse, in study group. 2) To compare the above observations with those of socio demographically similar, control group. Study design: Community based, Case-control study. Study setting: Urban slum community at P/North ward of B.M.C., Mumbai. Participants: 107 couple units in both...

Improvement in animal disease control and prevention is dependent on several factors including farmers' uptake of new technologies and skills, particularly in developing countries. Extension is the means by which information about these technologies and skills is delivered to farmers, in order that they can use this knowledge to improve farming practices and their quality of life. This implies ...

Semantic verbal fluency tasks are commonly used in neuropsychological assessment. Investigations of the influence of level of literacy have not yielded consistent results in the literature. This prompted us to investigate the ecological relevance of task specifics, in particular, the choice of semantic criteria used. Two groups of literate and illiterate subjects were compared on two verbal flu...