indian council of medical research - Pondicherry University DSpace ...

;ectlon For each Issue, the 0bSe~at10nS by ethnographic methods are foIl,,wc~ !I,
req(ilt~ derived by other Ppld~ml~lo~lcal methods Before PIOCPP~IIIQ !n 1111.
presentation of the results pertaining to the different Issues, the characteristics of the
school ch~ldren examlned ~n cross sectional morbldlty survey and the cohort followed
up longltudlnally are described
5.4. I Description of the chrldren in the cross sectional morbidity survey and the
cohort.
[a) School children examined in cross sectional morbid~ty survey
Out of a total of 1.881 children in school, 1,349 were available for examlnatlon The
rest could not be examined desplte a minlmum of 3 attempts to examine them The
1.349 chlldren Included 591 glrls (81 1% of all girls In the school) and 758 boys (65 3%
of all boys In the school) Chlldren from the ne~ghborlng v~tlages also attend the school
at Kedar Out of 591 girls, 80 (13 5%) and out of 758 boys, 325 (42 9%) were from
neighboring vlllages Slnce the cultural and the socloeconomlc condit~ons ~n the
nelghborln~ vlllages were slmllar to the study vlllage, ~t was assumed that ch~ldren from
outside the vlllage were comparable to the chlldren in Kedar The age and gender
d~strlbut~on of the examlned chlldren has been compared w~th that of the villagc-
chlldren between 5-15 years of age In Figure 5.1 It was observed that between 5-8
yeara of age, the proport~on of girls and boys examlned was lower than that of the
corresponding village population, in the age group 9-12 years, the proportion exam~ned
was sim~lar, and in the age group 13-15 years the proport~on of examined children was
h~gher Thls was perhaps due to the fact that in the lower age group, all the chlldren
Studying In school were from the village and the lower proportion examlned was a