Basic Household Amenities and its Interrelationship with Public Health Facilities: A Quantitative Study on Assam

Abstract

In spite of a quickened rate of economic growth in the last two decades, full coverage of the population in terms of basic facilities, including access to drinking water and sanitation remains a major challenge in India. Same can be said about public health facilities that are available to the citizens, despite of well planned medical strategies that are administered under appropriate authorities. The paper develops two weighted composite indices. The first index is designed to measure the coverage of basic household facilities directly related to healthy life viz. safe drinking water and proper sanitation facilities available in the different districts of Assam. The other index considers the extent in which public health facilities are available in the different districts of Assam based on some specific parameters of public health considered from the review of current literature and available data. The computed indices can provide the relative positions of the districts in terms of basic household facilities and public health facilities separately. An attempt is been made to check the existence of any empirical relation between the index of basic household facility and the index of public health facilities in the different districts of the state.