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      From menarche to menopause: A population-based assessment of water, sanitation, and hygiene risk factors for reproductive tract infection symptoms over life stages in rural girls and women in India

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          Abstract

          Women face greater challenges than men in accessing water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) resources to address their daily needs, and may respond to these challenges by adopting unsafe practices that increase the risk of reproductive tract infections (RTIs). WASH practices may change as women transition through socially-defined life stage experiences, like marriage and pregnancy. Thus, the relationship between WASH practices and RTIs might vary across female reproductive life stages. This cross-sectional study assessed the relationship between WASH exposures and self-reported RTI symptoms in 3,952 girls and women from two rural districts in India, and tested whether social exposures represented by reproductive life stage was an effect modifier of associations. In fully adjusted models, RTI symptoms were less common in women using a latrine without water for defecation versus open defecation (Odds Ratio (OR) = 0.69; Confidence Interval (CI) = 0.48, 0.98) and those walking shorter distances to a bathing location (OR = 0.79, CI = 0.63, 0.99), but there was no association between using a latrine with a water source and RTIs versus open defecation (OR = 1.09; CI = 0.69, 1.72). Unexpectedly, RTI symptoms were more common for women bathing daily with soap (OR = 6.55, CI = 3.60, 11.94) and for women washing their hands after defecation with soap (OR = 10.27; CI = 5.53, 19.08) or ash/soil/mud (OR = 6.02; CI = 3.07, 11.77) versus water only or no hand washing. WASH practices of girls and women varied across reproductive life stages, but the associations between WASH practices and RTI symptoms were not moderated by or confounded by life stage status. This study provides new evidence that WASH access and practices are associated with self-reported reproductive tract infection symptoms in rural Indian girls and women from different reproductive life stages. However, the counterintuitive directions of effect for soap use highlights that causality and mechanisms of effect cannot be inferred from this study design. Future research is needed to understand whether improvements in water and sanitation access could improve the practice of safe hygiene behaviors and reduce the global burden of RTIs in women.

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          Central effects of stress hormones in health and disease: Understanding the protective and damaging effects of stress and stress mediators.

          Stress begins in the brain and affects the brain, as well as the rest of the body. Acute stress responses promote adaptation and survival via responses of neural, cardiovascular, autonomic, immune and metabolic systems. Chronic stress can promote and exacerbate pathophysiology through the same systems that are dysregulated. The burden of chronic stress and accompanying changes in personal behaviors (smoking, eating too much, drinking, poor quality sleep; otherwise referred to as "lifestyle") is called allostatic overload. Brain regions such as hippocampus, prefrontal cortex and amygdala respond to acute and chronic stress and show changes in morphology and chemistry that are largely reversible if the chronic stress lasts for weeks. However, it is not clear whether prolonged stress for many months or years may have irreversible effects on the brain. The adaptive plasticity of chronic stress involves many mediators, including glucocorticoids, excitatory amino acids, endogenous factors such as brain neurotrophic factor (BDNF), polysialated neural cell adhesion molecule (PSA-NCAM) and tissue plasminogen activator (tPA). The role of this stress-induced remodeling of neural circuitry is discussed in relation to psychiatric illnesses, as well as chronic stress and the concept of top-down regulation of cognitive, autonomic and neuroendocrine function. This concept leads to a different way of regarding more holistic manipulations, such as physical activity and social support as an important complement to pharmaceutical therapy in treatment of the common phenomenon of being "stressed out". Policies of government and the private sector play an important role in this top-down view of minimizing the burden of chronic stress and related lifestyle (i.e. allostatic overload).
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            How can I deal with missing data in my study?

            Missing data in medical research is a common problem that has long been recognised by statisticians and medical researchers alike. In general, if the effect of missing data is not taken into account the results of the statistical analyses will be biased and the amount of variability in the data will not be correctly estimated. There are three main types of missing data pattern: Missing Completely At Random (MCAR), Missing At Random (MAR) and Not Missing At Random (NMAR). The type of missing data that a researcher has in their dataset determines the appropriate method to use in handling the missing data before a formal statistical analysis begins. The aim of this practice note is to describe these patterns of missing data and how they can occur, as well describing the methods of handling them. Simple and more complex methods are described, including the advantages and disadvantages of each method as well as their availability in routine software. It is good practice to perform a sensitivity analysis employing different missing data techniques in order to assess the robustness of the conclusions drawn from each approach.
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              A Systematic Review of the Health and Social Effects of Menstrual Hygiene Management

              Background Differing approaches to menstrual hygiene management (MHM) have been associated with a wide range of health and psycho-social outcomes in lower income settings. This paper systematically collates, summarizes and critically appraises the available evidence. Methods Following the PRISMA guidelines a structured search strategy was used to identify articles investigating the effects of MHM on health and psycho-social outcomes. The search was conducted in May 2012 and had no date limit. Data was extracted and quality of methodology was independently assessed by two researchers. Where no measure of effect was provided, but sufficient data were available to calculate one, this was undertaken. Meta-analysis was conducted where sufficient data were available. Results 14 articles were identified which looked at health outcomes, primarily reproductive tract infections (RTI). 11 articles were identified investigating associations between MHM, social restrictions and school attendance. MHM was found to be associated with RTI in 7 papers. Methodologies however varied greatly and overall quality was low. Meta-analysis of a subset of studies found no association between confirmed bacterial vaginosis and MHM (OR: 1.07, 95% CI: 0.52–2.24). No other substantial associations with health outcomes were found. Although there was good evidence that educational interventions can improve MHM practices and reduce social restrictions there was no quantitative evidence that improvements in management methods reduce school absenteeism. Conclusion The management of menstruation presents significant challenges for women in lower income settings; the effect of poor MHM however remains unclear. It is plausible that MHM can affect the reproductive tract but the specific infections, the strength of effect, and the route of transmission, remain unclear. There is a gap in the evidence for high quality randomised intervention studies which combine hardware and software interventions, in particular for better understanding the nuanced effect improving MHM may have on girls’ attendance at school.
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                Author and article information

                Contributors
                Role: ConceptualizationRole: Data curationRole: Formal analysisRole: Funding acquisitionRole: InvestigationRole: MethodologyRole: Project administrationRole: Writing – original draftRole: Writing – review & editing
                Role: SupervisionRole: Writing – review & editing
                Role: Funding acquisitionRole: MethodologyRole: Writing – review & editing
                Role: MethodologyRole: Writing – review & editing
                Role: MethodologyRole: SupervisionRole: Writing – review & editing
                Role: MethodologyRole: Writing – review & editing
                Role: Funding acquisitionRole: MethodologyRole: Project administrationRole: ResourcesRole: Writing – review & editing
                Role: MethodologyRole: Writing – review & editing
                Role: MethodologyRole: Writing – review & editing
                Role: MethodologyRole: Writing – review & editing
                Role: Data curationRole: Formal analysisRole: Writing – review & editing
                Role: Funding acquisitionRole: MethodologyRole: Writing – review & editing
                Role: Editor
                Journal
                PLoS One
                PLoS ONE
                plos
                plosone
                PLoS ONE
                Public Library of Science (San Francisco, CA USA )
                1932-6203
                5 December 2017
                2017
                : 12
                : 12
                : e0188234
                Affiliations
                [1 ] University of Iowa College of Public Health, Iowa City, IA, United States of America
                [2 ] Asian Institute of Public Health, Bhubaneshwar, India
                [3 ] London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London, United Kingdom
                [4 ] University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK, United States of America
                [5 ] Emory University, Atlanta, GA, United States of America
                [6 ] University of Nebraska Medical Center, Omaha, NE, United States of America
                University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, UNITED STATES
                Author notes

                Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

                Author information
                http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3774-2628
                http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8492-9033
                http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9716-0419
                http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9738-9857
                Article
                PONE-D-17-01007
                10.1371/journal.pone.0188234
                5716553
                29206842
                aa7131f6-894f-48c3-b8ed-2817c0a91981
                © 2017 Baker et al

                This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

                History
                : 10 January 2017
                : 31 October 2017
                Page count
                Figures: 0, Tables: 5, Pages: 20
                Funding
                Funded by: funder-id http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100000278, Department for International Development;
                Award ID: 6981
                This research received financial support from the Sanitation and Hygiene Applied Research for Equity (SHARE) consortium ( http://www.shareresearch.org/), which was funded by the UK Department for International Development (grant no. PO 6981). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
                Categories
                Research Article
                Medicine and Health Sciences
                Health Care
                Environmental Health
                Sanitation
                Medicine and Health Sciences
                Public and Occupational Health
                Environmental Health
                Sanitation
                Biology and Life Sciences
                Physiology
                Physiological Processes
                Defecation
                Medicine and Health Sciences
                Physiology
                Physiological Processes
                Defecation
                Medicine and Health Sciences
                Public and Occupational Health
                Hygiene
                Medicine and Health Sciences
                Women's Health
                Maternal Health
                Pregnancy
                Medicine and Health Sciences
                Women's Health
                Obstetrics and Gynecology
                Pregnancy
                Ecology and Environmental Sciences
                Natural Resources
                Water Resources
                Earth Sciences
                Hydrology
                Surface Water
                Medicine and Health Sciences
                Women's Health
                Physical Sciences
                Materials Science
                Materials by Attribute
                Surfactants
                Detergents
                Custom metadata
                All relevant data are within the paper and its Supporting Information files.

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