The prevalence of low health literacy in undergraduate students in Pakistan

This Regular Feature is based on a PhD study assessing the level of health literacy among university students in Pakistan. A cross-sectional survey was carried out using the validated European Health Literacy Survey (HLS-EU-Q) and non-parametric tests used to analyse data with the aim of determining the influence of personal determinants on health literacy skills. The findings of the study concluded that the population had a low health literacy level with limited skills in accessing, understanding, appraising and applying information for health care. Gender, age, and native languages, all had a statistically significant influence on health literacy skills. Practical implications are presented for the role of university libraries in supporting the development of health literacy in their undergraduate student populations are presented, including the need for the provision of health information in native languages.     

Alice in Oman

The success of university-level education depends on the quality of underlying school education and any deficiency therein may be detrimental to a student’s career. This may be more glaring with Computer Science education, given its mercurial nature. In the developing countries, the Computer Science school curricula are usually stuffed with obsolete, unnecessary and dry contents. The problem is multiplied by the lack of qualified school teachers and separate media of instruction at the school and the university. In this paper we are focusing on the computer Science pedagogy at schools, with a possibility of introducing approaches, like Alice. The latter may on one hand be appealing to both the students and teachers and on the other hand may require a lot less training. With that in view, an experiment was designed to teach Alice, to sampled K-12 students, and study the ensued effects. The outcomes were realized in two ways. One, the attendees were required to furnish a small project/task in order to judge their understanding of Alice. Two, the students were surveyed for their views on Alice and possible inclusion of such approaches in their course. Given the brief contact time, the results were found to be promising as most of the respondents were in favor of a change in the approach Computer Science teaching. The tasks were well received by the respondents and most of them carried out the tasks assigned to them, enthusiastically. English language Comprehension was the single largest problem and that’s why the students demonstrated reluctance in adding dialogues on part of the characters. As far as the responses to the questionnaire were concerned, an overwhelming majority had a favorable opinion of the approach. They found it easy to use, understand, comprehend and considered it useful in initiating a novice to programming. They even rated it superior to their current syllabus. Some questions were chosen from the futuristic point of view and the responses were more than expected as the students felt motivated towards studying IT after coming across Alice. The only thing the respondents insisted was the inclusion Arabic language support in the future versions of Alice.     

The performance status of higher educational institutions: A transfer of knowledge perspective

Education and Information Technologies - The study is the empirical application of Gul and Jamal's (2021) Transfer of Knowledge Index. The study presents the ranking of 17 public sector HEI by...     

Correction to: The performance status of higher educational institutions: A transfer of knowledge perspective

Education and Information Technologies -     

Socio-cultural Barriers to Attaining Recommended Levels of Physical Activity among Females: A Review of Literature

Females might be more affected by sociocultural barriers to physical activity because of their gender roles. This review was conducted to examine the available evidence on socioculture barriers to attaining recommended levels of physical activity among females. After thorough review, 34 articles were selected. Childcare, household work, cultural beliefs, social isolation, and unsafe neighborhood environment were leading sociocultural barriers preventing females from attaining recommended levels of physical activity. Lack of social support from family, living in extended families, living in rural areas, absence of culturally appropriate facilities, and, in some countries, past experiences of war were the main barriers. Observations of people in the family and in neighborhood performing physical activity were positively associated with physical activity. Females are a disadvantaged group that lacks social support and have poor control over decisions related to their health. Sociocultural factors act as the main barriers to recommended levels of physical activity.     

Proposed information outreach programme in primary and secondary health care of Punjab,Pakistan

The study reported is part of Dr. Naeem's doctoral research, supervised by Professor Bhatti, with the objective to propose an information outreach programme for health care professionals working in rural areas of the Punjab province, Pakistan. A cross‐sectional survey was conducted involving 517 practitioners from across different health care facilities in the area. The goals of the outreach programme are identified on the basis of the findings regarding practitioners’ current usage and awareness of, as well as attitude and self‐efficacy towards using health information resources. The identification of these goals and their related activities, including logistical, promotional and educational, results in a model of the required inputs and investments to achieve both the short term, intermediate and long term results of the programme. F.J.     

Assessing potential dietary toxicity of heavy metals in selected vegetables and food crops

Heavy metals, such as cadmium, copper, lead, chromium and mercury, are important environmental pollutants, particularly in areas with high anthropogenic pressure. Their presence in the atmosphere, soil and water, even in traces can cause serious problems to all organisms, and heavy metal bioaccumulation in the food chain especially can be highly dangerous to human health. Heavy metals enter the human body mainly through two routes namely： inhalation and ingestion, ingestion being the main route of exposure to these elements in human population. Heavy metals intake by human populations through food chain has been reported in many countries. Soil threshold for heavy metal toxicity is an important factor affecting soil environmental capacity of heavy metal and determines heavy metal cumulative loading limits. For soil-plant system, heavy metal toxicity threshold is the highest permissible content in the soil （total or bioavailable concentration） that does not pose any phytotoxic effects or heavy metals in the edible parts of the crops does not exceed food hygiene standards. Factors affecting the thresholds of dietary toxicity of heavy metal in soil-crop system include： soil type which includes soil pH, organic matter content, clay mineral and other soil chemical and biochemical properties; and crop species or cultivars regulated by genetic basis for heavy metal transport and accumulation in plants. In addition, the interactions of soil-plant root-microbes play important roles in regulating heavy metal movement from soil to the edible parts of crops. Agronomic practices such as fertilizer and water managements as well as crop rotation system can affect bioavailability and crop accumulation of heavy metals, thus influencing the thresholds for assessing dietary toxicity of heavy metals in the food chain. This paper reviews the phytotoxic effects and bioaccumulation of heavy metals in vegetables and food crops and assesses soil heavy metal thresholds for potential dietary toxicity.