Consumption Expenditure and Health Status: A Case of Eloor Municipality; Kerala

Abstract

While Kerala made remarkable achievement with respect to the mortality and fertility, the level of morbidity is reported to be high and this started debate on the “ low mortality and high morbidity syndrome” in Kerala. This debate concentrated around whether the high morbidity in Kerala was real perceived, given the high literacy, better health care infrastructure and higher utilization of health care services. Though Kerala has achieved revolutionary progress in the health care development, recently the state is under octopus hold of both communicable and chronic diseases, with arrival of rainy season, communicable diseases begins to dominate both the rural and urban area of the state and in the pervasiveness of chronic diseases, Kerala tops all the Indian states. Thus the paradox is that, one side Kerala stands as the state with all indicators of better health care development; on the other hand, it outstrips all other Indian states in terms of morbidity in terms of chronic illness. Since consumption expenditure is a determinant of health status, no systematic study has been carried out in recent years to understand consumption expenditure and morbidity pattern and its variation in Kerala. Little is known about the pattern of consumption expenditure and the health status. So this study seeks to analyze consumption expenditure and health status with special reference to Eloor municipality since Eloor is one of the strong industrial belts as well as polluted area in Kerala.