Context

The Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation has released the report of a survey titled ‘Health in India’, whose main objective was to gather basic quantitative information on India’s health sector.

About

• The report is released by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation.
• It details aspects of the role played by government and private sector facilities.
• It also contains health information for separate religious communities, including estimates of their susceptibility to ailments.
• The report is based on information collected through NSS Schedule 25.0 (Household Social Consumption: Health) spread over the entire Indian Union.
• Data were collected through a sample survey of 1.13 lakh households covering 5.55 lakh persons.

How ‘healthy’ is India?

• Around 7.5 percent of Indians reported that they were suffering from ailments.
• The difference in people suffering from ailments in rural and urban India was stark.
  • rural India- 6.8 per cent
  • urban India- 9.1 per cent

Which religious group is the most prone to illness?

• The Zoroastrian community remains the most susceptible to ailments.
• This number for other communities is:
  • Jains- 11.2 per cent
  • Sikhs- 11 per cent
  • Christians- 10.5 per cent
  • Muslims- 8.1 per cent
  • Buddhists- 8 per cent
  • Hindus- 7.2 per cent

What is Ailment? The survey defines ailment as any deviation from a person’s state of physical and mental well-being. The ‘Proportion of Persons who Responded as Ailing’ or PPRA, in a 15-day period when they were approached by the surveyors, were registered as those suffering from ailments.

Division in terms of sex

• Women remain more susceptible to suffering from ailments than men.
  • In rural India 6.1 per cent of males said that they were suffering from ailments, while 7.6 per cent of rural women said the same.
  • While 8.2 per cent of urban males said that they were sick, 10 per cent urban females said the same