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Item Achieving universal health coverage and sustainable development goals by 2030: investment estimates to increase production of health professionals in India(Hum. Resour. Health, 2023) Anup Karan; Himanshu Negandhi; Mehnaz Kabeer; Tomas Zapata; Dilip Mairembam; Hilde De Graeve; James Buchan; Sanjay ZodpeyBackgroundCOVID-19 has reinforced the importance of having a sufficient, well-distributed and competent health workforce. In addition to improving health outcomes, increased investment in health has the potential to generate employment, increase labour productivity and foster economic growth. We estimate the required investment for increasing the production of the health workforce in India for achieving the UHC/SDGs.MethodsWe used data from National Health Workforce Account 2018, Periodic Labour Force Survey 2018-19, population projection of Census of India, and government documents and reports. We distinguish between total stock of health professionals and active health workforce. We estimated current shortages in the health workforce using WHO and ILO recommended health worker:population ratio thresholds and extrapolated the supply of health workforce till 2030, using a range of scenarios of production of doctors and nurses/midwives. Using unit costs of opening a new medical college/nursing institute, we estimated the required levels of investment to bridge the potential gap in the health workforce.ResultsTo meet the threshold of 34.5 skilled health workers per 10 000 population, there will be a shortfall of 0.16 million doctors and 0.65 million nurses/midwives in the total stock and 0.57 million doctors and 1.98 million nurses/midwives in active health workforce by the year 2030. The shortages are higher when compared with a higher threshold of 44.5 health workers per 10 000 population. The estimated investment for the required increase in the production of health workforce ranges from INR 523 billion to 2 580 billion for doctors and INR 1 096 billion for nurses/midwives. Such investment during 2021-2025 has the potential of an additional employment generation within the health sector to the tune of 5.4 million and to contribute to national income to the extent of INR 3 429 billion annually.ConclusionIndia needs to significantly increase the production of doctors and nurses/midwives through investing in opening up new medical colleges. Nursing sector should be prioritized to encourage talents to join nursing profession and provide quality education. India needs to set up a benchmark for skill-mix ratio and provide attractive employment opportunities in the health sector to increase the demand and absorb the new graduates.Item Addressing child under nutrition: can traditional practices offer a solution?(Glob. Health Action, 2017) Sarika Chaturvedi; Joanna Raven; Bhushan PatwardhanChild under nutrition continues to be a challenge to global development, especially in resource-poor contexts. In the multifaceted attempts to address this challenge, popular traditional practices, although closely linked to infant health, remain neglected and less researched. The World Health Organization's recent strategy on traditional medicine systems provides overarching guidance in this regard. In this commentary, we attempt to exemplify this. We highlight the importance of traditional child care practices with regard to child nutrition and the need for trans-disciplinary research to explore the potential of these for public health. Infant oil massage appears to be a potentially beneficial practice for child nutrition. Rigorous trans-disciplinary research on traditional infant massage can provide simple solutions to address child under nutrition and nurture human capabilities globally.Item Accumulation of heavy metals in the vegetables grown in wastewater irrigated areas of Dehradun, India with reference to human health risk(Environ. Monit. Assess., 2015) A. K. Chopra; Chakresh PathakThe present study on accumulation of heavy metals in the vegetables viz. Beta vulgaris, Phaseolus vulgaris, Spinacea oleracea, and Brassica oleracea var. botrytis grown in the wastewater-irrigated soil near the Bindal river, Dehradun, has shown the maximum accumulation of metals for Pb (196.91 +/- 8.13 mg/kg), Cu (36.75 +/- 6.19 mg/kg), Zn (305.54 +/- 14.30 mg/kg), Ni (125.48 +/- 5.97 mg/kg), Cd (29.58 +/- 4.26 mg/kg), and Cr (93.06 +/- 3.25 mg/kg) in agricultural soil irrigated with wastewater. The enrichment factor of soil was maximum for Cr (8.74) and minimum for Cu (0.88). In case of vegetables, the concentrations of heavy metals were maximum for Pb (86.69 +/- 6.69) in the flower of B. oleracea var. botrytis, Cu (33.49 +/- 2.09) and Zn (161.86 +/- 17.79) in the leaves of S. oleracea, Ni (80.72 +/- 8.40) and Cd (23.19 +/- 2.76), and Cr (57.18 +/- 8.16) in the root of B. vulgaris grown in wastewater (WW)-irrigated soil. The bioaccumulation factor (BAF) for Cu (0.911) was maximum in S. oleracea and minimum for Pb (0.440) in B. vulgaris. The maximum daily intake of metals was found for Zn (0.059) in S. oleracea and minimumfor Cd (0.008) in B. vulgaris. The human health risk index was found to be more than 1 for Pb and Cd. The long-term wastewater irrigation resulted in accumulation of heavy metals in vegetables which may cause potential health risks to consumers as these vegetables are sold in local markets of Dehradun city.