Community Medicine Faculty, PG Students Shine at Goa EFICON-2023

Faculty members and PG students of Community Medicine Department, KIMS have done exceptionally well at the fourth Annual National Conference of Epidemiology Foundation of India (EFICON-2023), held from September 30 to October 1 at Goa Medical College. Total 1,200 delegates from all over the country participated with 300 posters and 250 oral papers.

Prof. (Dr) Sonali Kar presented an oral paper on the topic: “Revisiting the Rule of Halves in Non-Communicable Diseases (HTN) among Tribal Population in Odisha: Evidence of a Need for Rule of Three fourths and Reinforcement of post-pandemic preparedness Lessons to Plan Recommendations” under the Non-communicable disease category, which was awarded with the second prize. The conference was well attended by other faculties from the department who were judges for sessions of Public Health Relevance.

Dr. Liwa Patnaik (Final year) and Dr Angana Ray (Second year)PG students,both were awarded first prizes in oral papers and poster presentation. Both the presentations were under the Reproductive and Child Health category.

Dr Liwa’s oral presentation was on the topic: “Effect of Facility, Services and Resource Mapping on the Trends of Contraceptive Acceptance in a Rural Tribal Population of Odisha, India”, while Dr Angana’s poster was on the topic: “Qualitative Assessment of Sterilization Operations Among Eligible Couples in Two Districts With High Total Fertility Rate in Tribal Odisha: An effort to plan to offer respectful contraception”. Both the studies were out of the ICMR extramural proposal, guided by Prof. (Dr.) Sonali Kar. Their presentations were well appreciated by delegates and judges.

Similarly, Second year PG students Dr Dibyajyoti Mandal and Dr Spandan Mishra’s presentations were also well appreciated by the judges and delegates.