HEALTH PROBLEMS IN INDIA

1. DR.ANJALATCHI MUTHUKUMARAN
VICE PRINCIPAL
ERA COLLEGE OF NURSING
UNIT-II
HEALTH PROBLEMS IN INDIA

2. Health Problems in India
INTRODUCTION:-
Assessment of health status and health problems is
the first requisites for any planned effort to
develop health services . India was one of the
pioneers in heath services planning with a focus
primary health care .

3. Definition of health problem
 Health problems is a state in which person is
unable to function normally (state of ill health
,unhealthiness).
Major health problems :-
 There are various health problems in India which
can be categorized in following:-

4. Cont..
1- communicable
& non
communicable
problems
2- Nutritional
problems
3-
Environmental
& sanitation
problems
4- Medical
problems
5- Population
problems

5. 1- Communicable Problems
 Communicable disease continue to be major
problems in India . Disease considered to be of
great importance today are :
1. Malaria:-
 Malaria continues to be a major health problem in
India.
 Although total malaria cases has decline compare
to previous year, the proportion of P. falciparum
has increased.
 Malaria cases have increased in northeast state
MP, Jharkhand,Andhra
pradesh,Orissa,Maharashtra etc.

6. 2. Tuberculosis :-
 Tuberculosis remains a public health problem, with
India accounting for one-fifth of the world
incidence.
 Every year about 2.6 million person develop
tuberculosis.
 0.24 million people are die of TB every year.
3. Diarrheal diseases:-
 Diarrheal disease constitute one of the major
causes of morbidity and mortality, specially in
children below 5 yrs of age.
 10.76 million cases of diarrheal each year.
4. ARI:-
 Acute respiratory disease is one of the major cause

7.  During 2013, 31.7 million episodes of ARI were
reported with 3.278 deaths.
5. Leprosy :-
 Leprosy is another important public health problems
in India .
 During the year 2013-2014 total of 1.27lakh new
cases were detected, out of which child cases were
9.49%.
 India has achieved the goal of leprosy elimination at
national level.

8. 6. falaria:-
 The problem of filaria remains endemic in about 250
district in 20 states.
 achieve the elimination of LF, the GOVT. of India
has launched nationwide annual MASS DRUG
ADMINISTRATION .with annual single dose of
diethylcar – bamazine citrates tablets in addition to
scaling up home based foot care and hydrocele
operations.
 In 2012 ,250 endemic district implemented MDA
targeting a population of about 554 million with the
coverage rate of 87%.

9. 7. AIDS:-
 The problem of AIDS is stable .
 It is estimated that by the year 2012there were about
2.08 million HIV positive cases in the country .
8. Others :-
 Kala azar , meningitis , viral hepatitis , JE , dengue
fever , enteric fever, and helminthes infestation are
among the other important communicable disease
problems in India.
 These problems can be overcome by, such
measures, as manipulation of environment, practice
if preventive medicine and improvement of standards
of living .

10. 2- Non- communicable disease
problems
NCDs , especially diabetes mellitus , CVD,
Cancer, stroke, and chronic lung disease have
emerged as major public health problems due to
an aging population and environmentally – driven
change behavior .
Cancer has become an important public health
problem in India with an estimated 7 & 9 lakhs
cases occurring every year.
In , India more then 12 million people are blinds .
Most of the district hospitals have a post of dental
surgeon but they lack equipment , machinery,
material.

11. 3- Nutritional problems
 From the Nutritional points of , the indian society
is a dual society, consisting of small group of well
fed and a very large group of undernourished.
 The specific nutritional problems in the country
are :-

12. Cont…
Protein
energy
malnutrition
Low birth
weight
xerophthal
amia
Nutritional
anemia
Iodine
deficiency

13. 4- Environmental Sanitation
problems
 The most difficult problems to tackle in the
country is perhaps the environmental sanitation
problem, which is multifacted & multifactorial.
 Sanitation is the hygienic means of promoting
health through prevention of human contact the
hazards of wastes.
 Hazards can be physical, microbiological,
biological, or chemical agents disease.

14.  Open defecation is a huge problems in rural areas
though it has reduced but the practice not completely
vanished .
 It is estimated that 1 in every 10 deaths in Indian
villages, is linked to sanitation and hygiene.
 In 2012, minister of development stated India has
the worlds largest “open air toilet”.
 This is of greater concern as of deaths from diarrhea
occur because of unsafe water, inadequate
sanitation & poor hygiene .

15. 5- Medical problems
 India has a national health policy. It does not
have a national health service.
 The financial resources are considered
inadequate to furnish the costs of running such a
service.
 The government spending on health care is
grossly inadequate. It spends about 1% of the
national GDP on health care .

16.  The main medical problems are:-
 over crowded hospitals .
 Lack of manpower.
 Inadequate availability and accessibility.

17. 6- population problems
 Population problems is one of the major problems
of India that is called the population explosion.
 In 2011, estimated that India with 1,220,200,000
(1.22 billion) people and is the second most
population country in the worlds.
 Both domestic and global population growth is
adding to conflict over water , energy, food, open
space, and wilderness, transportation
infrastructure, schools rooms, and numerous
other problems .

18. Cont…
 In developing countries , large family size is a
major cause of poverty and poor health.
 Currently the growth rate of India is 1.8.

19. Reference
 Saxena R.P . Textbook of community health
nursing . 2nd edition. Lotus publication. New Delhi.
2018. page no. 68-70
 Park,s K. text book of preventive and social
medicine. 23 rd edition m/s banarasidas bhanot
publishers. Prem nagar nagpur road jabalpur
(India). 2015 . Page no.898-900.