Economists' Forum

The proximate cause for this column is the publication by Business Standard Books of the India Health Report 2010 edited (and mostly written) by Ajay Mahal, Bibek Debroy and Laveesh Bhandari. For anyone interested in India’s health status, access to healthcare and medicines, emerging health problems, infrastructure of health services, medical ethics, healthcare financing, government programmes and regulations and key issues in health sector reform, this report is an excellent introduction-cum-survey. Here I provide a selective summary to whet the appetite of readers to peruse the full report.

The first chapter makes the case for greater policy attention to health issues. For years, analysts have noted the close positive correlation between a country’s per capita income and the life expectancy at birth of its people, as also the close negative correlation between per capita income and the infant mortality rate.

Until 20 years ago, the general presumption was that economic development and the associated improvement in living standards led to lower IMRs and higher LEBs. Over the past two decades research has accumulated indicating that health conditions could be improved substantially even at low income levels through appropriate policy interventions and that causation may sometimes run the other way as well: better health conditions of a population leading to improved economic performance.

The pre-budget Economic Survey of the government, published at the end February, exudes optimism on economic growth: “Indian gross domestic product can be expected to grow at 8.5 +/- 0.25 per cent (in fiscal year 2010/11), with a full recovery breaching the 9 per cent mark 2011/12.”