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Article History

Received: 21 September 2020

Accepted: 26 January 2021

First Online: 18 February 2021

Ethics approval and consent to participate

: The study protocol was presented to the Institutional Review Board and Ethical Committee of the School of Public Health, SRM University. It was approved after a thorough review. Special considerations such as investigations on indigenous populations and requirements of good quality of informed consent were discussed. Fully informed consent was obtained from all the participants before the interview. In the case of respondents who couldn’t read and write, a left thumb impression was obtained after the informed consent. An impartial witness also signed the consent forms. The interviews were conducted in the privacy of the homes of the respondents. Strict confidentiality was assured for the information collected from the respondents. Only the investigators, the data analysis teams, and the research team had access to the collected information. The investigators respected the cultures and traditions of the tribal populations during the data collection visits.

: Not applicable.

: Being a single author no question of competing interests.