Vol 10, Issue 5, 2017 Online - 2455-3891 Print - 0974-2441 RISK FACTOR ASSESSMENT FOR ACNE VULGARIS IN HUMAN AND IMPLICATIONS FOR PUBLIC HEALTH INTERVENTIONS IN NORTH CENTRAL INDIA: A SURVEY-BASED STUDY AFIFA QIDWAI, MANISHA PANDEY, SHASHI KANT SHUKLA, ANAND PANDEY, RAJESH KUMAR, ANUPAM DIKSHIT* Department of Botany, Biological Product Laboratory, University of Allahabad, Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh, India. Email: anupambplau@rediffmail.com Received: 23 January 2016, Revised and Accepted: 02 March 2017 ABSTRACT Objective: The aim of the present study is to deal with the population based field study regarding factors that might play essential role in occurrence or epidemiology of Acne vulgaris in north central India. Methods: This cross-sectional study was a population based field study. Populations were assessed for influence of various factors on acne prevalence. The study was carried out from April 2016 to October 2016 in north central India. For this survey, questionnaires were designed to cover all the required information regarding the incidence of acne that includes factors such as gender, age, skin type, complexion, season of the incidence, and dietary habit. Results: Acne vulgaris appears to be influenced by gender, age, seasonal variations, breakout area, complexion, skin types, and dietary habits. Further, the influence of dietary habit on acne, particularly the consumption of dairy products or high-carbon diet has also been evaluated. Apart from depicting the vulnerable range of age (p=0.003288), sensitivity on various skin types (P=0.00039) and complexion (P=0.001355) on the basis of gender; this field study on acne vulgaris, also reveals that the season has inordinate role in acne pervasiveness (P=0.115731). Conclusion: This study is helpful in categorizing the risk factors and manifesting the afflictions of acne in population thus, contributing health-care planning. Keywords: Acne, Prevalence, Risk factors, Post management. INTRODUCTION Various superficial infectious agents are responsible for human skin problems. In this row, acne vulgaris is one of the most common chronic diseases of the pilosebaceous unit. It affects almost 85% of adolescents when they undergo maximum physical, psychological, and social changes [1]. This problem is neither life-threatening nor physically incapacitating, but generally procures the image of face. Moreover, it can affect the metabolic functioning and erode self-esteem of susceptible individuals [2]. Moving toward the factors influencing acne, female patients tend to develop acne earlier with high persistency than males whereas male suffers with the severe form of acne vulgaris [3-8]. Therefore, it is the demanding need of the present scenario to focus on the wide range of an epidemiological survey on acne vulgaris. Population-based data of epidemiologic survey are significant in computing tools to identify the risk factors, treatments, and expenses of health services. However, community sampling records are considered as an effective method of dermatological investigations of acne cases, in spite of this, it is rare [9]. The aim of the present study is to reveal the multifactorial prevalence of acne vulgaris and various demographic features along with its probable factors that affect the frequency to some extent. To the best of our knowledge, no similar studies have been reported from the north central part of India till date. METHODS This cross-sectional study was a population-based field study intending to discern the factors that influence the prevalence of acne in adolescents. The study carried out from April 2016 to October 2016 in the north central part of India. For this survey, questionnaires were designed to cover all the required information regarding the occurrence of acne that includes factors such as gender, age, skin type, complexion, season of the occurrence, dietary habit etc [10]. The schools, colleges, universities as well as local residential colonies including slum areas were taken under consideration. We seek permission for the survey from principals of all the selected institutions. The assortments of the area were made in such a way so as to represent all the socioeconomic groups. We demonstrated the candidates in school, colleges, and in communities the required information about acne and about the survey by lectures and presentations and administer the questionnaires. This study was approved by the hospital research. Grading of questionnaire responses The grading of questionnaire was designed as such so that all the possible factors influencing the acne prevalence were considered. The different socioeconomic groups were included to conclude the effect of sanitation, dietary habit, candidates that approach different medical help and to share candidate’s personal household remedies experience that can help in further studies. The major factors were as follows: Gender and age The gender-based analyses were done by grouping male and female individuals. This is an important factor as there are considerable variations in the prevalence due to variations in hormones. On the basis of gender, most of the other factors were evaluated. To address both the gender equality, we seek coeducation and segregated institutes. Candidates were asked to assess their age, divided into groups (6-12, 12-18, 18-24, 24-30, and 30-36) and their gender, i.e., male or female as well as to evaluate the severity of their acne infection. © 2017 The Authors. Published by Innovare Academic Sciences Pvt Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons. org/licenses/by/4. 0/) DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.22159/ajpcr.2017.v10i5.17265 Research Article