https://arunmitra.com/research/ Recent content in Research on Arun Mitra Hugo -- gohugo.io en Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://arunmitra.com/research/hrv-ageing-autonomic/ Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://arunmitra.com/research/hrv-ageing-autonomic/ Background Heart rate variability (HRV) — the beat-to-beat fluctuation in heart rate — is a widely used, non-invasive index of cardiac autonomic regulation, and its time- and frequency-domain measures shift with age, sex, and environment. Most reference values in clinical and research use are derived from Western populations, yet autonomic function differs across regions and ethnic groups. This study set out to establish region-specific normative HRV values for a predominantly South Indian population and to characterise how those values vary with age and gender. https://arunmitra.com/research/mch-data-ecosystem/ Mon, 30 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://arunmitra.com/research/mch-data-ecosystem/ Background Despite heavy investment in digital health information systems, frontline facilities in resource-constrained settings remain paradoxically data-rich yet information-poor. Health information systems built with an upward gaze for accountability reporting often fail to support the decisions that medical officers, data entry operators, and ANMs need to make locally. This work, part of Arun Mitra’s PhD thesis on participatory data science in ITDA-Rampachodavaram, Andhra Pradesh, asks how the maternal and child health (MCH) data ecosystem at primary health centre (PHC) level is actually structured, used, and constrained. https://arunmitra.com/research/caesarean-section-nfhs/ Fri, 20 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://arunmitra.com/research/caesarean-section-nfhs/ Background Caesarean section rates in India have risen substantially, raising concerns about both under-provision in underserved populations and over-medicalisation in others. These rates are not uniform across the country, and understanding their geographic patterning is essential for targeted policy. The National Family Health Survey (NFHS) provides large, nationally representative data well suited to mapping where caesarean delivery is unusually common or uncommon. This study uses NFHS data and spatial analysis to identify geographic clusters of caesarean-section rates across India. https://arunmitra.com/research/lap-tapp-hernia/ Mon, 15 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000 https://arunmitra.com/research/lap-tapp-hernia/ Background Laparoscopic transabdominal preperitoneal (TAPP) repair is a widely used minimally invasive technique for inguinal-hernia management, and reconstruction of the peritoneal flap is a key step whose technical details may affect closure time and surgeon effort. This collaborator-led, prospective randomised controlled trial protocol, titled “Effect of Needle Orientation and Closure Direction on Peritoneal Flap Reconstruction During TAPP Inguinal Hernia Repair”, sets out to test how needle orientation and closure direction influence peritoneal flap reconstruction. https://arunmitra.com/research/nutrition-sts-intervention/ Thu, 20 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000 https://arunmitra.com/research/nutrition-sts-intervention/ Background Anaemia in pregnancy is a major problem in India — NFHS-5 puts the prevalence at 52.2% — and adherence to routine iron–folic acid (IFA) supplementation is often poor because of side effects. Mobile-health (mHealth) tools that support dietary awareness and supplement reminders have been proposed as a way to improve behaviour and outcomes. This study tested whether the NutriAide app (developed by the National Institute of Nutrition), used for daily dietary self-logging, adds measurable benefit over standard antenatal care in anaemic pregnant women. https://arunmitra.com/research/tb-notification-seasonality-india/ Sat, 01 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000 https://arunmitra.com/research/tb-notification-seasonality-india/ Background Tuberculosis notifications in India rise and fall over the year, and that seasonality is often read as a property of the disease — transmission, reactivation, or care-seeking shifting with the seasons. But notifications are produced by a reporting system, not just by biology. Campaign drives, working-day patterns, and public-sector reporting behaviour can imprint their own rhythm on the data. This study asks whether India’s apparent TB seasonality is a disease signal or, in part, a reporting artefact. https://arunmitra.com/research/tb-notification-gap-india/ Sat, 01 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000 https://arunmitra.com/research/tb-notification-gap-india/ Background India carries the world’s largest tuberculosis burden, and a central challenge for the National TB Elimination Programme is the gap between the TB cases that occur and the cases that are actually notified. National coverage figures hide enormous local variation: some districts notify nearly everyone they should, while others miss a large share of their true burden. This project asks where India misses tuberculosis — at a resolution fine enough to be actionable — and why. https://arunmitra.com/research/dengue-climate-panel/ Sun, 26 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000 https://arunmitra.com/research/dengue-climate-panel/ Background Dengue is among the most climate-sensitive vector-borne diseases, with transmission shaped by temperature, rainfall, and humidity that govern mosquito breeding and viral replication. India has experienced a substantial rise in dengue burden in recent decades, concurrent with climatic change. This project, titled “Panel Data Modelling for determining Climate Change impact on Dengue in India from 1997-2022”, examines how climate variability has influenced the dengue burden across Indian states. https://arunmitra.com/research/amr-diagnostics-poct/ Wed, 09 Jul 2025 00:00:00 +0000 https://arunmitra.com/research/amr-diagnostics-poct/ Background Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a growing threat in low- and middle-income countries, yet access to reliable diagnostics remains deeply unequal. Marginalised populations, particularly in rural, tribal, and remote settings, are least likely to reach laboratories capable of culture and susceptibility testing, leaving treatment to empirical and often inappropriate antibiotic use. This work, conducted under the EquityAMR initiative in India, examines the AMR diagnostic access gap for marginalised communities and the role point-of-care technologies could play in closing it. https://arunmitra.com/research/stroke-reperfusion-access/ Sun, 01 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000 https://arunmitra.com/research/stroke-reperfusion-access/ Background Acute ischaemic stroke is a time-critical emergency in which reperfusion therapy, intravenous thrombolysis (IVT) and endovascular thrombectomy (EVT), must be delivered within a narrow therapeutic window to salvage brain tissue. In a country as large and geographically heterogeneous as India, the practical benefit of these treatments depends not only on whether capable centres exist but on whether patients can physically reach them in time. This study asks a simple but consequential question: what share of India’s population actually lives within a one-hour drive of a stroke centre equipped to deliver IVT or EVT, and how does that access vary across regions? https://arunmitra.com/research/tb-goa-differentiated-care/ Sun, 01 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000 https://arunmitra.com/research/tb-goa-differentiated-care/ Background India’s National Tuberculosis Elimination Programme (NTEP) has set an ambitious elimination target, yet Goa has reported a persistently high TB death rate, around 9% in 2023 against roughly 4.2% nationally. Diabetes, alcohol use, and loss to follow-up are commonly cited as drivers, but concrete local evidence has been limited. This project applies data-science and epidemiological methods to NTEP (Ni-kshay) records to characterise TB notification, comorbidity, and differentiated-care patterns in the state. https://arunmitra.com/research/stroke-prehospital-delay/ Tue, 27 May 2025 00:00:00 +0000 https://arunmitra.com/research/stroke-prehospital-delay/ Background Timely arrival at a stroke-capable facility is critical for access to reperfusion therapies, yet prehospital delay remains a major barrier to effective acute stroke care, particularly in low- and middle-income settings. This project synthesises the published evidence on the factors associated with delay in reaching care after stroke onset. Understanding these determinants is essential for designing interventions to shorten the time from symptom onset to treatment. https://arunmitra.com/research/antenatal-mental-health/ Tue, 01 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000 https://arunmitra.com/research/antenatal-mental-health/ Background Common mental health disorders in pregnancy, particularly anxiety and depression, are frequently under-detected in routine antenatal care despite their consequences for maternal and child outcomes. This collaborator-led clinical study screened pregnant women attending a tertiary care centre in Telangana to estimate the burden of antenatal anxiety and depression and to characterise the referral cascade for those screening positive. Approach A cross-sectional design was used, with anxiety screened via the GAD-7 and depression via the PHQ-9, scored into standard severity bands (minimal, mild, moderate, moderately severe, severe). https://arunmitra.com/research/rop-maternal-nutrition/ Mon, 24 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000 https://arunmitra.com/research/rop-maternal-nutrition/ Background Retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) is a leading cause of preventable childhood visual impairment, with the burden shifting increasingly toward low- and middle-income countries. While prematurity and supplemental oxygen are the most established risk factors, upstream antenatal determinants such as maternal nutritional status may also shape fetal retinal vascular development and neonatal outcomes. This study examines whether maternal anthropometry is associated with the key neonatal determinants of ROP risk in an Indian tertiary NICU setting, where maternal undernutrition and high preterm birth rates coexist. https://arunmitra.com/research/deers-diagnostic-accuracy/ Sat, 01 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000 https://arunmitra.com/research/deers-diagnostic-accuracy/ Background Endometrial cancer requires early and accurate diagnosis, but the gold standard, histopathological examination (HPE) of an endometrial biopsy, is invasive and uncomfortable. The DEERS imaging test (Diseases of Endometrium – Evaluation and Risk Scoring) is a novel technology offering real-time visualization and classification of endometrial tissue. This study rigorously evaluates its diagnostic performance against HPE. Approach This retrospective analytical study was conducted at a tertiary care hospital in Telangana among 309 women with abnormal uterine bleeding. https://arunmitra.com/research/icmr-rch-tribal-ap/ Wed, 12 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000 https://arunmitra.com/research/icmr-rch-tribal-ap/ Background Reproductive and child health (RCH) services in tribal India generate substantial routine data, but the sources are fragmented across systems and stakeholders, and the resulting information is under-used for service delivery and review. This proposal, prepared for the ICMR investigator-initiated (Intermediate) extramural grant call and sited in ITDA-Rampachodavaram, addresses that gap by treating data integration and use as a participatory, system-level problem rather than a purely technical one. https://arunmitra.com/research/participatory-data-science-mch/ Sat, 01 Jul 2023 00:00:00 +0000 https://arunmitra.com/research/participatory-data-science-mch/ Background Tribal primary health centres (PHCs) in India operate within data-rich routine health information systems (RHIS), yet local decision-making for maternal and child health (MCH) remains constrained: data is fragmented, misaligned with local needs, and rarely available in usable, actionable formats. The result is a wide gap between centrally oriented reporting and the ground-level realities of MCH service delivery. This PhD asks how a participatory data-science approach can re-orient routine systems to support PHC-level decisions, transforming under-used data into meaningful, context-specific, and actionable insight. https://arunmitra.com/research/covid-epidemic-curve/ Wed, 12 May 2021 00:00:00 +0000 https://arunmitra.com/research/covid-epidemic-curve/ The importance of epidemic curves in epidemiology in understanding and visualising the onset and progression of an epidemic is immense. It provides key insights in terms of the magnitude of the disease, the mode of transmission, trends over time and the incubation period. The below interactive plot is variant of the epidemic curve of COVID-19 in India. By default, the weekly average of daily cases, recovered and deaths is presented in the plot. https://arunmitra.com/research/covid-rt-estimation/ Wed, 12 May 2021 00:00:00 +0000 https://arunmitra.com/research/covid-rt-estimation/ https://arunmitra.com/research/covid-wave-comparison/ Wed, 12 May 2021 00:00:00 +0000 https://arunmitra.com/research/covid-wave-comparison/ The abrupt onset of the second wave of COVID-19 in India has taken the country by storm. With over 4,00,000 cases being reported daily, India has over 37,00,000 active cases as of 12, May 2021. This post aims to estimate the epidemiological parameters of COVID-19 epidemic in India during the first and second waves. As discussed in the previous post, India’s epidemic curve suggests an ongoing second wave of COVID-19 infections in the country. https://arunmitra.com/research/covid-vaccine-inequities/ Wed, 12 May 2021 00:00:00 +0000 https://arunmitra.com/research/covid-vaccine-inequities/ This post looks into the COVID-19 vaccinations in India and the respective states. The data is downloaded from COVID-19 India Tracker Website as provided in the data sources section in the methodology. Total Vaccinations ## Warning in RColorBrewer::brewer.pal(N, "Set2"): n too large, allowed maximum for palette Set2 is 8 ## Returning the palette you asked for with that many colors ## Warning in RColorBrewer::brewer.