I am grateful to the National Cancer Registry Programme of the Indian Council of Medical Research, New Delhi, India and University of Tampere, Finland for providing this opportunity to complete the International Postgraduate Programme in Epidemiology at the Tampere School of Public Health, University of Tampere, Finland. I am also grateful to the Centre for International Mobility (CIMO), Finland for providing the scholarship to complete this programme.
I wish to express my sincere thanks to my supervisor Prof. Matti Hakama, Tampere School of Public Health, Tampere, Finland for supervising my work. His guidance throughout the programme gave me confidence to complete this work. I gratefully acknowledge his support, guidance and help.
I highly appreciate Prof. N.S. Murthy, Emeritus Medical Scientist of the National Cancer Registry Programme (ICMR), Bangalore, India, and Prof. Pekka Nieminen of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Helsinki University Central Hospital, Helsinki, Finland, who are the official reviewers of my thesis, for their constructive review of the manuscript. Due to their suggestions, criticism, and advice, the quality of manuscript has improved a lot. I do gratefully acknowledge their contribution.
I am thankful to Dr. K. A. Dinshaw, who is the Director, Tata Memorial Centre, Mumbai, and also the Principal Investigator of the Rural Cancer Registry, Barshi, for her support and help to undertake this task.
I would like to express my most sincere gratitude to Dr. B.M. Nene, who is the Director, Nargis Dutt Memorial Cancer Hospital, Barshi, and also Co-Principal Investigator of the Rural Cancer Registry, Barshi, for his co-operation, support and guidance. His constant encouragement was of great help in completing my dissertation.
I would like to express my most sincere thanks to Mrs. K. Jayant, who is the Consultant Epidemiologist, Nargis Dutt Memorial Cancer Hospital, Barshi, and also in-house supervisor, for her valuable guidance and for deputing me for the Finland training. I gratefully acknowledge all her support and guidance.
I am immensely thankful to Dr. D.M. Parkin, ex-chief, Unit of Descriptive Epidemiology of IARC, Lyon, France, for his suggestion that I should write the monograph on cervical cancer control in rural India.
I am deeply grateful to all the women who participated in the study, and to all the village leaders, schoolteachers, anganwadi workers, and district authorities of Solapur and Osmanabad for their co-operation and help.
I would like to express my sincere thanks to my teachers Prof. Anssi Auvinen, Prof. Suvi Virtanen, Prof. Lyly Teppo, Dr. Raili Salmelin, Ms. Heini Huhtala, Ms Riina Haataja, and Tiina Salminen of the Tampere School of Public Health for their excellent teaching. I am thankful to Raili Lepisto, Heli Koivisto, Neill Booth, and to all the staff members of Tampere School of Public Health for their co-operation and help.
I highly appreciate Ms Catarina Stahle-Nieminen and Ms Anna-Mari Nykänen, international ordinators of the Tampere School of Public Health, for their sincere co-operation and help. My special thanks are due to Ms. Marita Hallila for correcting my manuscript according to publication requirement. I am very grateful to Ms. Virginia Mattila of the Language Centre for her help in language correction.
I sincerely thank Dr. Timo Hakulinen, Director, Finnish Cancer Registry, Helsinki Finland for his permission to analyse my thesis data at the Finnish Cancer Registry. I express my special thanks to my friend Mr. Tapio Luostarinen for his help in data analysis and in searching the articles for review of the literature, and to Prof. Risto Sankila and Dr. Tadeusz Dyba of the Finnish Cancer Registry, Finland, for their help.
I am grateful to all the council members of Ashwini Rural Cancer Research and Relief Society, Barshi, for their support. I am grateful to Mr. B.S. Shukla, Treasurer;
Mr. M. K. Chauhan, Chief Co-ordinator; and Mrs. A.B. Nene, Administrator, of Nargis Dutt Memorial Cancer Hospital Barshi for their co-operation and help.
I am grateful for the encouragement given by Dr. Shastri, Dr. Chinoy, Dr. Kelkar, Dr. Deodhar, Dr. Ganesh, and Dr. Dikshit of Tata Memorial Hospital, Mumbai.
I wish to express my sincere thanks to my co-fellows from India - Dr. Varghese, Dr. Swaminathan, Mr. Murali Dhar and Dr. Jayadevan - and to Mr. Arun Pokhrel of Nepal, Dr. Rahman Shiri of Iran, and Dr. I. Bashir of Bangla Desh for their excellent company which made me feel at home in Finland.
I would like to thank Mr. Panse, Mr. Mathapati, Mr. Kesare, Mr. Pise, Mr.
Gaikwad, Mr. Dudhankar, Mr. Honmane, who are colleagues from the Rural Cancer Registry, Barshi and to Mr. Shinde, Mr. Rantanparkhe, Mr. Patil, Mr. Kulkarni, Mr.
More, Mr. Kumbhar, who are colleagues from the ‘Health Education’ project, and to Mr. Hingmire, Mr. Thorath, Mr. Gheware, Mr. Deshpande, Mr. Lakshetty, Mr. Basade,
I am grateful to my senior colleagues Dr. Kothari, Dr. Khan, Dr. Kulkarni, Mrs.
Deshpande, Mrs. Chiwate and Miss Kathwate for their co-operation in the health education programme. I am grateful to Dr. S.G. Malvi, cytologist from Tata Memorial Hospital, Mumbai, for her co-operation in the quality control of cytology cases of the
‘Health Education Project’.
I am profoundly thankful to Dr. Lucien Frappart, pathologist from Hopital Edouard Herriot, Lyon, France. I do also sincerely thank Ms. E. Bayle, Mr. E. Lucas, Ms. O. Bouvy, and Ms. S. Sibert-Dardenne from IARC, Lyon, France, for all their co-operation and help.
I am deeply grateful to Dr. G. M. Patil, who has taken care of my family during my absences. I am indeed grateful to our family advisors Mr. Rupanar and Mr. Kanchan for all their guidance and help. I profoundly thank Mr. Desai and his family, Mr. Karad, Mr. Wade, Mr. Koli, and Dr. Alkka for their help and support.
I wish to express my warmest gratitude to my parents, brothers, sister, mother-in-law, and brother-in-mother-in-law, and to all my relatives and friends from Solapur and Osmanabad district for their inspiration and encouragement in all my efforts.
Finally, I have to express my sincere thanks to my wife Ankita and my daughters Riya and Rashi without which this acknowledgement part would not be complete for their constant support during my studies and for all their care and concern.
Tampere, October 2007 Atul Budukh