Asia

Background: Approximately 2·8 billion people are exposed to household air pollution from cooking with polluting fuels. Few monitoring studies have systematically measured health-damaging air pollutant (ie, fine particulate matter [PM2·5] and black carbon) concentrations from a wide range of cooking fuels across diverse populations. This multinational study aimed to assess the magnitude of kitchen concentrations and personal exposures to PM2·5 and black carbon in rural communities with a wide range of cooking environments.

This study aimed to analyze the psychological status in patients with breast cancer (BS) during the COVID-19 outbreak and observed high rates of anxiety, depression, distress, and insomnia. Special attention should be paid to the psychological status of patients with BC, especially those with poor general condition, treatment discontinuation, aggressive molecular subtypes, and metastatic BC.
Agriculture consumes huge amounts of water in China and is profoundly affected by climate change. This study projects the agricultural water use towards 2030 under the climate change mitigation target at the provincial level in China by linking a computable general equilibrium (CGE) model and a regression model.

Climate, land use and land cover (LULC) changes are among the primary driving forces of soil loss. Decoupling their effects can help in understanding the magnitude and trend of soil loss in response to human activities and ecosystem management. Here, the RUSLE model was applied to estimate the spatial-temporal variations of soil loss rate in the Three Gorges Reservoir (TGR) area during 2001–2015, followed by a scenario design to decouple the effects of climate and LULC changes. The results showed that increasing rainfall generated as much as 2.90 × 107 t soil loss in the TGR area.

This paper summarized China's integrated actions (2015 onwards) that benefit both climate change mitigation and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Elsevier, Women's Studies International Forum, Volume 82, September - October 2020
To better understand how gender impacts parliamentary representation, we analysed representative claims made by parliamentarians in India, the world's largest democracy. Applying critical frame analysis to plenary debates in the Indian Rajya Sabha, we examined four parliamentary bills addressing violence against women and children under four successive governments between 1999 and 2019. Testing six hypotheses concerning who represents and how, our study found women legislators more active in speaking on behalf of women and children than male legislators.
International advocacy and evidence have been critical for shifting the pervasive issue of violence against women onto the health agenda. Guidelines and training packages, however, can be underpinned by Western principles of responding to individual survivors of violence and availability of specialist referral services, which may not be available in many countries.
Elsevier, Journal of Transport and Health, Volume 18, September 2020
Introduction: Transport, a well-recognised determinant of health, is particularly salient to well-being and equitable health outcomes amongst older people and people living with disabilities living in low-and middle-income countries. This study explored the facilitators and barriers for safe and accessible transportation from the perspectives of older people and those living with disabilities in Sri Lanka.
Salinity stress adversely affects root nodulation symbiotic relationships, and ultimately the nitrogen fixation capacity and the growth and yield of leguminous plants. Improving growth and biological nitrogen fixation of leguminous plants grown on salt–affected soils are considered to be a striking challenge.

Background: Access to safe sanitation and the elimination of open defecation are pre-conditions for improved child health and nutrition and wider achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). While Indonesia has a solid policy framework, the country ranks third globally in terms of numbers of people practicing open defecation. Objectives: Our aim was to assess the effectiveness of a five-year strategy to reduce open defecation through accelerating implementation of the national sanitation program across districts receiving variable levels of external support.

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