World Health Survey 2003: Intervention Needed

The ‘Health System Performance Assessment’, fruit of the World Health Survey 2003 in six states in the country by the World Health Organisation, Geneva, and the International Institute for Population Sciences, Mumbai, lists some very important health policy issues for India.

The survey, conducted in Assam, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal, covered a combined sample of 10,279 households and 9,994 adults with an almost equal proportion of men and women respondents. The data related to socio-demographics, individual health, expenditure on health and insurance, risk factors (ranging from sanitation to tobacco use to exercise), coverage of health interventions and the respondents’ perception of the health system’s treatment of them. “Plateauing health trends in infant mortality, maternal and child health in safe deliveries in the 1990s and slow down progress in achieving the desired health goals, large interstate variations and poor-rich inequalities” are the main concerns, it says in its findings.