Vitamin D is essential for maintaining serum calcium levels, ensuring sufficient bone mineralization, immunomodulatory properties, and a protective effect on the cardiovascular system, renal disease, cancer, as well as in pregnancy. Vitamin D deficiency is prevalent worldwide, and it is not related to a country’s development index. However, the data on vitamin D deficiencies are primarily taken from out-of-date, small-scale studies on target age groups or specific diseases, rather than from large-scale, population-based surveys. In Malaysia, for the past 16 years, studies were conducted involving adult men and women, pregnant women, postmenopausal women, adolescent, and children especially with specific diseases such as spina bifida, epilepsy, chronic liver disease, and atopic dermatitis. Only a few large surveys were conducted involving children and adolescents. Across the specific target population studied, vitamin D deficiency and insufficiency were seen particularly among females, Indians, and those of Malay ethnicity. This is related to widely known causes of vitamin D deficiency such as skin type (melanin) and sun avoidant lifestyles that include covering clothes, largely practiced by Malay Muslims in Malaysia. Other related causes or the high-risk groups are breastfed infants, the elderly, the obese, those on medications, and those characterized by fat malabsorption and geophysical factors. Vitamin D deficiency can be managed with pharmacological or non-pharmacological approaches, depending on the severity. The objective is to raise serum vitamin D to a normal level, hence, relieving the symptoms and reducing the adverse health outcomes. Despite no clear guidelines in treating vitamin D deficiency in Malaysia, this condition can be prevented with taking adequate vitamin D in food resources, sun exposure, or supplementation. Special attention should be given to high-risk groups including infants, obese patients, and the elderly.

BACKGROUND: Multiple studies have been conducted on the level of knowledge, attitude, and preventive practices (KAP) towards leptospirosis, descriptively, analytically pertaining to its relationship and also associated factors such as sociodemographic and economic factors. Over the years, different community settings and sampling frames were applied. AIM: The goal of this review is to identify available literature evidence on the community's knowledge, attitudes, and behaviours about leptospirosis, taking into account variations and similarities in techniques, tools, and data analysis. METHODS: A literature search was undertaken using the electronic databases PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, and Ovid. Open access articles produced between 2011 and 2021 were analysed, with an emphasis on community's KAP. RESULTS: Eight articles met the inclusion benchmarks. The relationship between knowledge, attitude and preventive practices is not congruent. However, most studies showed that good knowledge is attributed to good attitude, but attitude does not necessarily contribute to good practice. Socio-demographic factors such as educational level, ethnicity, age, income and geographical location (distance to the river) have an influence on knowledge, attitude and practice. CONCLUSION: More KAP studies with standardised methodology and questionnaires regarding leptospirosis are required in order to formulate effective, sustainable and replicable health program interventions to prevent the community from leptospirosis infection and fatality. In the future, more qualitative studies should be done to further investigate and combine with quantitative studies to form prediction modelling.