NI Publications

The objective of the proposed study was to evaluate the use of an interactive telephone-linked Personalized Human Centered Decision Support System for facilitating the delivery of personalized nutrition care for diabetic patients.

The study described the usefulness of an interactive, touch screen computer-enabled SMAART informatics platform to screen individuals at risk of NCDs including diabetes, hypertension, and obesity. Sixty-Four police personnel were screened during this pilot initiative at the Police Sanchar Training Centre, Sahastradhara road, Dehradun on 6th January and 7th January 2020. Individuals were assessed for overweight/obesity, hypertension, and diabetes and made aware of how to self-manage their condition. Based on the individual risk findings, a tailored lifestyle health card was generated. Hypertension (31%) was found to be the most common family history. 36% of individuals were presently smokers or consumed alcohol. Sixty-two percent of them self-reported doing some form of exercise. About 87% of them were not receiving any treatment to self-manage hypertension. Using JNC 8 criteria, 37% of the individuals were hypertensive. Fifty of the 64 individuals expressed interest to receive an SMS message. 64% of them expressed keenness to receive weekly SMS messages. The Swasthya Pahal program using the SMAART informatics framework can be a useful tool to enhance screening and self-management of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) among police personnel.

Nutrition informatics (NI) is the effective retrieval, organization, storage, and optimum use of information, data, and knowledge for food-and-nutrition-related problem solving and decision-making. There is a growing opportunity to facilitate technology-enabled behavioral change interventions to support NI research and practice. This paper highlights the changing landscape of food and nutrition practices in India to prepare a NI workforce that could provide some valuable tools to address the double burden of nutrition.

The objective of the study was to assess the features and content of Anemia apps available on the google play store to help manage anemia. The search was conducted for apps related to different types of anemia apps on the Google play store and Apple App Store in June 2021. A total of 350 apps were retrieved on Google Play Store for a different type of anemia while no app was retrieved in Apple App Store accessed through the desktop. A total of 51 apps were included in the analysis after screening based on inclusion and exclusion criteria.  

The review aimed at assessing the general characteristics and mapping of the Behaviour Change Techniques (BCTs) in health and lifestyle-based apps. The search was conducted in February 2021 in India using the Apple App Store database to identify health and lifestyle apps. Keywords used for the search were Nutrition, Obesity, Cholesterol, Diabetes, Hypertension, Exercise, and Yoga. A total of 47 apps were included for further analysis.

The study aimed to review the available apps on hypertension/high blood pressure and DASH Diet, and investigate their main functional and analytical characteristics. The search was conducted in February 2021 in India using the Google Play Store database to identify currently available Android-based apps related to self-management of hypertension/ high blood pressure. Keywords used were: Hypertension’, ‘High Blood Pressure’, ‘DASH Diet’, ‘Hypertension Diet’, and ‘Blood pressure diet’. A total of 822 apps were screened based on the duplicates, inclusion, and exclusion criteria. In the end, a total of 211 were included for further analysis.

The study aimed to assess various pregnancy diet apps available in the google play store, along with the assessment of behavior change techniques (BCTs) and pregnancy-specific nutrition information. The search was conducted in February 2021 using the Google Play Store on m-Health apps related to pregnancy diet. Using the search term ‘Pregnancy diet apps’, 250 apps were retrieved. On screening based on inclusion and exclusion criteria, 50 relevant apps were identified for analysis.

The objective of the study was to comprehensively assess and evaluate the characteristics and features of malnutrition applications available in the Google Play Store. To evaluate the availability of health applications for Malnutrition, a search was conducted in February 2021 on the Google Play Store using Google Chrome as the browser. The search term entered in Google play store was “Malnutrition”.

The objective of the study was to assess the features of childhood obesity apps available in the google play store. We examined the inclusion of scientific evidence-based strategies in the apps for the management of childhood obesity. To achieve this, a search was conducted for childhood obesity apps in the Google play store in February 2021. A total of 250 apps were retrieved. After applying inclusion, exclusion criteria, and removing the duplicate apps, the final 66 apps were identified and analyzed for the present study. 

The study aimed to evaluate the quality and readability of diabetes-related online health information. Webpages were gathered by using the keywords “Diabetes mellitus”, “Diabetes mellitus causes”, “Diabetes mellitus diagnosis”, “Diabetes mellitus prevention”, and “Diabetes mellitus management” on Google. Previously validated DISCERN and Flesch-Kincaid Tools were used by the four raters to assess 37 unique websites. Overall DISCERN score (out of 80) for 37 included websites was 49.40 ± 5.83 denoting ‘fair’ quality of information. The .org websites were of good quality (52.2 ± 5.82). Sixteen websites had a good quality of information. Out of the 37 selected websites, only 14 (37.84%) of the websites had HONcode labels.  The mean FRES was 44.80 ± 11.53. The mean FKGL was 10.48 ± 2.37. The information available on the internet regarding diabetes was difficult to read and could be comprehended by individuals who achieved approximately US Grade 10th. There is a need for simplified and good quality online information which can help individuals, patients, and their caregivers make an informed decision.