Health and India\'s Economic Development : Challenges and Opportunities

Contents: Introduction. 1. Health inequality, poverty and inclusive growth in India/L.N. Dash. 2. Health manpower and health development in India/L.N. Dash. 3. Health for all: from firm promises to new realism/K. Gangadharan. 4. Public expenditure on health: global scenario with particular reference to India/Harvinder Kaur and Gursimran Kaur. 5. Health financing Reform in India: lessons from other countries/S. Sandhya. 6. Trends and determinants of early neonatal mortality in India/Binod Bihari Jena and Prakash Chandra Sahoo. 7. Differentials in maternal health care utilisation in Odisha: an inter-district analysis/Ayusmati Das and Pratap C. Mohanty. 8. Health status of tribes in Odisha: reflection on critical issues and problems/Sudhakar Patra and Kabita Kumari Sahu. 9. Health status of tribals in Odisha: a case for concern/Bijaya Kumar Panda. 10. Growth and pattern of health care expenditure in Odisha/Hadibandhu Sahoo, Anuva Choudhury and Amita Kumari Choudhury..... Health is a form of human capital which facilitate economic development of a nation in very many ways. As poverty level has declined in the post-liberalisation period, the income level of the people has gone up. This has resulted in the expansion of health seeking behaviour of the people. Despite this public expenditure as a percent of GDP has not increased much. Even after the allocation of huge amount of funds through the NRHM programme, public expenditure as a percent of GDP has reached just 1.37 percent in 2010-11. The limited public sector suffers from unlimited problems. As the public sector has failed to cope up with rise in health care demand the private sector dominates the health care market which is evident from the fact that the private sector provides 76 percent of the healthcare in India. Rising cost of diagnosis medicines and hospitalisation push millions of Indians below the poverty line. (jacket)