Study on Prevalence of lodine Deficiency Disorder and Salt Consumption Patterns in Jammu Region

What is the situation of iodine deficiency disorder (IDD) and salt consumption in Jammu region?

The prevalence of IDD has decreased markedly as a result of medical as well as socio-economic factors.

To assess the magnitude of IDD in Jammu region and also assess the salt consumption patterns in the region.

Cross-sectional study.

Primary schools in both urban and rural areas. STUDY TOOLS: Clinical examination of study population for goiter, laboratory assessment of casual urine sample for urinary iodine estimation of I(2) content of salt samples collected from sub-samples of study population.

School children in the age group of 6-12 years were selected for study using WHO 30-cluster methodology, urine samples were collected from 15% of selected children and salt samples from 5% of sub-sample. ETHICAL CONCERN: No ethical issues were involved.

An overall goiter prevalence of 11.98% was observed in the region. Females had a prevalence of 16.1% and males 10.1%. The median urinary iodine excretion in the region was 96.5 mug/l (range: 29.0-190.0 mug/l). Forty-nine percent of subjects had biochemical iodine deficiency with 6.7% having moderate and 42.53% mild iodine deficiency. In Jammu region, 74.47% of households consume powdered salt with 98.17% powdered salt samples having an I(2) content of greater than 15 ppm.

Iodine deficiency remains a public health problem in the region, though the region seems to be in a state of nutritional transition from iodine deficiency to iodine sufficiency.