QU students’ study highlights significant public health risks

THE graduation research projects of Qatar University’s (QU) Department of Public Health students highlight several significant health topics, including childhood development and obesity.

Most of the 21 students who presented the projects will graduate in Spring 2019, making them the fourth group of alumni with a BSc in Public Health.

Students Fatima al Bakri, Estabraq al Araji and Hind al Marri presented a project with national interest — the association between breastfeeding and early childhood development in Qatari children.

Eman al Bahrani, Sara al Saffar and Lara Saranek explored the association between diabetes and cardiovascular diseases and their risk factors based on data from Qatar Biobank. Both projects were supervised by Dr Mohammed Fasih Alam.

Dr Diana al Sayed Hasan and her students Sara al Rajeh, Aisha al Ahmed and Huda Maki investigated the link between cyberbullying and depression in QU.

Dr Diana also supervised a project by Fatema Helaluddin, Omnia Mohamed and Ozra Hajebi Chahestani, who investigated how self-management practices impact quality of type 2 diabetes patients’ lives in Qatar.

Dr Lily O’Hara and her students Aisha al Rumeihi, Reema Sultan and Afnan al

Aswad tried to ascertain the extend of body image dissatisfaction among QU female students.

Dr Manar Elhassan, Rodaina Hashem, Nada Arar and Nasra Ayon used Qatar Biobank data to investigate the association between obesity and risk of hypercholesterolemia.

Additionally, a national financial analysis of health expenditure was presented by Dr Shafqat Shehzad and her students, Dana al Sabbagh, Nurun al Nahar and Ekram al Mushaddani as they presented a cross-country comparison of expenditure on health based on evidence from WHO- EMRO data.