Quantitative study on socio-economic determinants of health

Abstract

India, as a part of the world community, has pledged to halve hunger by 2015, as stated in Millennium Development Goal (MDG, 2010), but the present trends show that this target is unlikely to be met. Nutrition indicators in India have stagnated and per capita calorie consumption has actually declined, suggesting that the problem of hunger may have got worse rather than better. It is home to about 25 per cent of the world's hungry poor (FAO, 2009). Forty eight per cent of children under the age of five years are malnourished in India, which is over a third of the world's 150 million malnourished under-fives. India is home to 42 per cent of the world's underweight children and 31 per cent of its stunted children (UNICEF, 2009b). It is estimated that 3 per cent of GDP is lost by physical impairments caused by malnutrition in Asian countries (Economist, 2010a). Nearly all studies examining health service utilization support that preventive visits improve overall health and reduce maternal and child mortality substantially. There is a strong relationship between women's empowerment and health. Only 27.1 per cent of women in India seem to be able to make a decision about their own health care, while 30.1 per cent of decisions are made by husbands. While 62.2 per cent of women decide on their own or jointly with their husbands about their health care, this seems to improve with education levels (NFHS-3, 2005–06). Only 60.3 per cent of urban women and 41.5 per cent of rural women are allowed to go alone to a health facility. However, the situation seems to improve with age, education and employment status. All this indicates that there is a need for economic and educational empowerment of women in order to improve their basic access to health care (Nayak & Mahanta, 2008). Using linear and multiple regressions the paper analyzes state level data to examine the influence of socio-economic factors on reduction of infant mortality rate of the states and union territories (UTs) of India. IMR of the states were inversely related to their female literacy rates (slope =-0.992, P < 0.0001). Multiple linear regression also revealed a significant inverse relationship between IMR and female literacy (slope =-0.8975, P < 0.0009).