Indian Health Crisis 

Why in news?

A report “India: Health of the Nation’s States” has been released collaboratively by various Indian agencies.

What is about the report?

• This report is a first state-level disease burden and risk factors estimates to improve health and planning for every Indian state.
• It is a collaborative work by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), the Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI), the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) and the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.
• The researchers divided India's states into four groups according to various indicators such as

1. Level of development or epidemiological transition.
2. Ratio of illness.
3. Premature death caused by communicable, maternal, neonatal, and nutritional diseases (CMNNDs) versus non-communicable diseases (NCDs)
4. Injuries

• The report used data from censuses, large-scale national household surveys, disease surveillance data, and administrative records of health services, disease registries, and a wide range of other health studies conducted across India.

What are the implications of the report?

• Lifestyle expectancy -Indians have gained nearly a decade of life expectancy since 1990, women more so than men.
• Communicable disease -Despite signs of progress, diarrhoea diseases, iron-deficiency anaemia, and tuberculosis still cause a disproportionate amount of ill health, and claim more lives.
• NCDs - It include diabetes, chronic respiratory diseases, mental health and neurological disorders, cancers, cardiovascular diseases, chronic kidney diseases and musculoskeletal disorders.
• Contribution of communicable diseases to deaths in India reduced from 53.6 per cent to 27.5 per cent, while that of NCDs rose from 37.9 per cent to 61.8 per cent.
• In the last 26 years, diabetes increased by 174 per cent and ischaemic heart disease (IHD) went up by 104 per cent.
• IHD and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease were the leading causes of premature death and ill-health in 2016, overtaking lower respiratory infections and diarrhoeal diseases.
• Malnutrition – It continues to be a curse in some of the poorer states, like Chhattisgarh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand, Rajasthan, Odisha, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh and Assam.
• It found a higher incidence of malnutrition among women.
• Mortality rates - Under-five mortality rate has decreased significantly in all states.
• But, in the states that recorded the highest number of such mortalities, such as Assam and Uttar Pradesh, the rates were four times that of the states with the lowest incidence, such as the relatively more prosperous Kerala.

What are the contributors of health loss?

• Rapid urbanisation is responsible for rising deaths and health loss from road injuries in most states since 1990.
• The burden due to non-communicable disease and injuries has overtaken the burden due to infectious and maternal-child diseases in every state of India.
• The contribution of non-communicable diseases are fuelled by unhealthy diets, high blood pressure, blood sugar and overweight, has doubled in India over the past two decades.
• Air pollution and tobacco smoking continue to be major contributors to health loss.

Source: Business standard