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Introduction: Socioeconomic status is an important determinant of health condition of an individual or a family. Many tools are being used to assess the socioeconomic status. Each of the scales have their own advantages and disadvantages. But an appropriate and a standardized tool is yet to be developed Objectives: To compare the standard of living based on different socioeconomic scales in a semiurban area of Mangalore and to assess the appropriateness of socioeconomic scales to be used in a semiurban area of Mangalore Methodology: A cross sectional study was conducted in households of Kuthar and Manjanady villages of Dakshina Kannada district from June- August 2014. Questionnaire method was used to avail information about the socioeconomic status of the study population. The data was analysed using SPSS 16 software. Results: Majority (70%) of the study population belonged to class IV of kuppuswamy scale. Whereas according to Modified BG Prasad scale majority of the population belonged to class III (35%) and class II (28%). According to Pareek's scale around 92% of population belonged to class IV. Butwhen standard of living was assessed majority of them(62%) had high standard of Living. Conclusions: We found that Standard of living is the better option in assessing the socio-economic status of a household as compared to all other scales whether be it urban, rural or semi urban. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Hypertension, also known as high or raised blood pressure, is a global public health issue and is the major contributory factor for the burden of heart disease, stroke, renal failure, prematuremortality andmorbidityworldwide. Objectives: 1. To determine the community prevalence of hypertension. 2. To Assess the House hold Awareness Of hypertension. 3. To study the pattern and regularity of treatment in hypertensives. Methodology: A cross sectional study was carried out in 40 Households of Grama-Kshema Project in Kuthar and Manjanady villages (semi urban) which belong to the field practice area of K.S. Hegde Medical Academy, Mangalore. A structured Question naire was used to collect data. Questions on awarenesswere scored and analyzed. Results: The community prevalence of hypertension among the households surveyedwas 9.6 percent out ofwhich 12.5%were female and 5.9% were male. Among them 46.7% were in the age group 51-70 years, 40% in the age group 31-50 years and 13.3% in the age group above 70 years.40% of hypertensive visit their doctor on monthly basis.66.7% of the hypertensives visit private dispensary for their treatment and follow up. 93.3% are on anti-hypertensives of which 33.3% use calcium channel blockers. Awareness scoring showed that 40%had poor score and 37.5%average score. Conclusions: In the present study the prevalence of hypertension was found to be low. Among those diagnosed of hypertension, majority of them were females. Most of the hypertensive's visit private dispensaries on monthly basis. Awareness of Hypertension among the householdswas poor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Food security is defined as "Access by all people at all times to enough food for an active, healthy life". The deprivation of basic need represented by food insecurity and hunger are possible precursors to nutritional, health, and developmental problems Objectives: To assess the food security and the pattern of nutrient intake among the households of field practice areas and to describe the relationship between food security with various socio demographic factors and select diseases like diabetes and hypertension. Methodology: A cross sectional study was conducted in households of Kuthar and Manjanady villages of Dakshina Kannada district from June- August 2014. The Food Security Core-Module Questionnaire in the Guide to Measuring Household Food Security (Revised 2000) prepared by United States Department of Agriculture was used in this study. The questionnaire was translated to local languages (Kannada and Malayalam) and linguistic validation was done. The data was analysed using SPSS software. Results: Around 53% of the houses studies were food secure followed by households with food insecurity with no hunger. Majority of the houses had carbohydrate and protein as their predominant nutrient intake. Majority of the households spending 26-50% of the total income on food were food secure. Among the food secure households, diabetes was present in nearly half the houses Conclusions: The study area does not have hunger as a problem but still food insecurity exists, with upto 50% of income spent on food. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]