The report titled “India: Health of the nation’s states” is based on a study on disease patterns in India and compares the situation in 1990 and 2016.
A recent report, has brought out the diversity within India, as regards challenges to health. The report titled “India: Health of the nation’s states” is based on a study on disease patterns in India and compares the situation in 1990 and 2016. The study was conducted by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI) and the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation. The study provides estimates of the impact of 333 disease conditions and injuries and 84 risk factors for every state of India from 1990 to 2016. The report says that “Although variations in diseases and risk factors have been anticipated between the states of India, this is the first time that a comprehensive compilation of all estimates in a single standardised framework has been made possible for every state in India”.
The report provides an analysis of the burden of different disease conditions and injuries that lead to illness and death as well as those of risk factors that lead to different diseases. The results are quantified in the form of Disability Adjusted Life Years (DALYs) lost by individuals as a result of different disease conditions. This is a standard format for analysis used since the 1990s to assess the “Global Burden of Disease” and is a measure of life years lost in different parts of the world. In order to standardize the results across different countries ‘life years lost’ is measured against an ideal situation – currently taken as the life expectancy of a Japanese female. The technical details in the report have also been published in a scientific paper in the UK based journal, The Lancet.
Epidemiological Transition and Diversity in Trends in States
The report highlights two major findings. First that India has, in the period between 1990-2016, undergone an epidemiological transition – meaning the kinds of illnesses causing the maximum number of deaths and disability (temporary or permanent) has changed. Data regarding Life Years lost in Burden of Disease studies is divided into three broad headings – 1) Communicable (infectious diseases), maternal (pregnancy related), neonatal (related to conditions in very young children), and nutritional diseases (CMNNDs); 2) Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) – which include cardiac and neurological diseases and cancers; and 3) Injuries (due to accidents, conflicts, natural disasters, etc.). The report finds that “off the total disease burden in India measured as DALYs, 61% was due to communicable, maternal, neonatal, and nutritional diseases in 1990, which dropped to 33% in 2016. There was a corresponding increase in the contribution of non-communicable diseases from 30% of the total disease burden in 1990 to 55% in 2016, and of injuries from 9% to 12%”.
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