Questing a walkable city: a case of urban neighbourhood walkability environment in Bangladesh

Purpose What makes neighbourhood environment more walkable is an important question for urban planning and design research. The purpose of this paper is to explore this question through a case study of urban sidewalks in different contexts of urban neighbourhoods in Rajshahi city of Bangladesh. Design/methodology/approach Using participatory observation, Google street view and photography techniques, it examines the quality of the street facilities by demonstrating physical attributes of sidewalks and by analysing how various obstructions on them characterize neighbourhood walkability environment. Findings The findings suggest that the unusable sidewalks in Rajshahi city, Bangladesh, are a production of inadequate and inappropriate planning and design that unable to capitalize the functionality of sidewalks as a means of walking. It further argues that the urban planners and designers of streets have paid little attention to the diverse requirements of sidewalks in accordance with spatial and socio-economic categories of urban neighbourhoods. Originality/value This study adds insights about the urban sidewalks planning and design in the context of a developing country. It provides an empirical evidence about the constraints and potentials of making a walkable city.

Prevalence and pathological investigation of fowl typhoid in commercial poultry farms at the Rajshahi City Corporation area of Bangladesh

The present study was conducted to determine the prevalence of Fowl typhoid in apparently healthy, sick and dead birds at Rajshahi city corporation area of Bangladesh. A total of 500 birds (50 from each farm) and 30 different organs (liver from 10, ovary from 8, heart from 7, and caecal tonsils from 5) were randomly collected from different commercial poultry farms during the period from January 2018 to December 2018. The prevalence study was performed based on history, clinical signs, symptoms exhibited by the individual bird of a flock during the observation of farms, and illness of birds. The suspected birds were subjected to necropsy examination. During sample collection, clinical signs and gross necropsy changes were recorded very carefully. The collected tissues were fixed, processed, sectioned, stained, and studied light microscopically. The routine histopathological method was used for the detection of tissue-level alterations in Fowl typhoid infected cases. The prevalence of Fowl typhoid in apparently healthy birds of different poultry farms was 8.2%, and 23.33% of organs were involved. Grossly, the liver was enlarged, congested and revealed bronze discoloration with focal necrosis in the surface of the liver. Old raised hemorrhages were found in the caecal tonsils. Congested, deformed, and pedunculated ova were other important findings. Microscopically, the sections of the liver showing multifocal necrosis with infiltration of heterophils and reticulo-endothelial cells. Res. Agric., Livest. Fish.8(2): 201-209, August 2021

High Risk Behavior, Knowledge and Attitudes of Adolescent Health: A Study from Rajshahi City Corporation Area of Bangladesh

Background: Adolescence is one of the most dynamic stages of human growth and development. It is an important issue in Bangladesh as well as in the world. Reproductive health of adolescents is strongly affected by sociodemographic factors. The purpose of this study was to establish the factors that influence on high-risk behavior, knowledge and attitudes of adolescent, which were regarded as determinants. Data and Methods: Socio-demographic, health related behavior was collected from 1084 adolescence girls in Rajshahi City Corporation (RCC) area, Bangladesh. Bivariate analysis has been used to show the association between the reproductive health knowledge with some socio-demographic and health related characteristics. In multivariate analysis, binary logistic regression analysis was used to determine the effects of the various factors to reproductive health knowledge among female adolescent. Findings: Education is an important determinant of adolescent health. Most the respondent is secondary level of education, which was 64.2%. The study result shows that 37.6% adolescent girl has knowledge about adolescent health care. It also shown that very few numbers of adolescent have idea about abortion, reproductive health knowledge about pregnancy avoids method and family planning method but maximum respondent heard about idea about sex, marriage and knowledge about HIV/AIDS. Logistic regression analysis findings specify that respondent in the age group 15-19 years is more expected to in turn ever having accomplished knowledge about adolescent health. Sexual violence is directly related to the duration of marriage. Married respondents have 0.221 (27.9%) times lower experienced to knowledge about adolescent health than that of the unmarried respondents. Conclusion: This study needs to strengthen public-private sector partnership and stakeholder participation, active involvement of adolescents in their reproductive health matters. Respondent educational qualification has positively significant effect on knowledge about adolescent reproductive health. Age of respondents, Idea about pregnancy, Idea about abortion, Physical problem during menstruation, knowledge about pregnancy has also significant effect on knowledge about adolescent reproductive health. The most effective interventions are probably structural changes to improve people daily life with families and peers and access to improve education.

Service Delivery and Accountability of Urban Officials: Evidence from Urban-based Local Government in Bangladesh

This study compares the state of city government service delivery for communities living in different areas with different level of affluence in Rajshahi City in Bangladesh. Based on the results of a qualitative study, we found a significant service disparity between the affluent and the poor communities. This disparity is due to the inability of the poor to hold service providers accountable, attributable to a lack of knowledge about services and a lack of social status. Lack of quality monitoring and a marked bias in the quality of interactions between the poor and the affluent contribute to the service disparity This disparity is largely invisible to the poor who, instead of comparing themselves with the affluent citizens, compare themselves with a similar class of people.

Monitoring the Land Cover Change and Its Impact on the Land Surface Temperature of Rajshahi City, Bangladesh using GIS and Remote Sensing Techniques

Urban growth possesses significant impact on land cover by replacing natural landscape into impervious surface. Substantial alteration of the green space into built-up areas have influential impact on the land surface temperature of a city. The aim of this study is to identify the land cover change on Rajshahi City Corporation (RCC) area for the last twenty years (1998-2018) and to assess the impact of land cover change on land surface temperature. During the last two decades, constant expansion of built-up area within Rajshahi city encroach the substantial amount of vegetation, open space, and waterbody areas, which results in large area of impervious surface. Therefore, two spatial analysis software namely Arc GIS and Erdas Imagine have been used to identify the amount of land cover change and variation in land surface temperature through supervised image classification and spectral radiance calculation methods on Landsat satellite images (1998. 2008 and 2018). The result shows that, the built-up area have been doubled during the last two decades by covering 10.98 and 22.82 square kilometers areas in 1998 and 2018 respectively. With a strong positive correlation between the land surface temperature and the land cover area, the maximum temperature rises from 23.25 to 27.08 degrees Celsius. This trend of Land Surface Temperature indicates, Urban Heat Island is building up within Rajshahi city.

Risk factors of suicidality among married adults: A cross-sectional survey in Rajshahi City, Bangladesh

Background Suicide is a serious public health concern all over the world including Bangladesh. About 9% of the patients admitted with suicidal ideation (SI) or suicide attempt (SA) later complete suicide. To understand and prevent suicide, the study of SI and SA is necessary but research in this area is scanty in Bangladesh. Therefore, we studied suicidality (SI and SA) among married adults in Rajshahi City, Bangladesh. Methods This was a household cross-sectional study. A total of 708 married adults were selected for this study using a multi-stage random sampling. Suicidality was measured based on two factors: (i) suicidal ideation, and (ii) suicide attempt. Frequency distribution, Chi-square test and multiple binary logistic regression model were used in this study according to our objectives. Results The prevalence of suicidal ideation, suicide attempt, and suicidality was 5.8%, 3.4%, and 8.3% respectively among married adults. A multiple binary logistic regression model provided the following risk factors of suicidality: (i) joint family (AOR = 0.310, p<0.01), (ii) ≥26 years of age at the first marriage (AOR = 0.379, p<0.05), (iii) twice or more marriage (AOR = 0.214, p<0.01), (iv) conjugal life of ≥16 years (AOR = 0.410, p<0.05), (v) having no child (AOR = 6.343, p<0.01) and (vi) having 1–2 children (AOR = 6.190, p<0.01), (vii) medical comorbidity (AOR = 0.421, p<0.01), (viii) mental comorbidity (AOR = 0.253, p<0.01), (ix) stress-anxiety (AOR = 0.311, p<0.01), (x) family history of mental disorders (AOR = 0.059, p<0.01), (xi) family history of suicide/suicide attempt (AOR = 0.009, p<0.01), (xii) substance abuse (AOR = 0.065, p<0.01), (xiii) poor relationship with spouse (AOR = 0.209, p<0.01), and (xiv) poor relationship with other family members (AOR = 0.347, p<0.05). Conclusion The prevalence of suicidality is remarkable in Rajshahi city, Bangladesh. The government and non-government agencies can use the findings of this study to identify the vulnerable groups and undertake measures for preventing and reducing suicidality.