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HEALTH INEQUALITIES AMONG URBAN CHILDREN IN INDIA: A COMPARATIVE ASSESSMENT OF EMPOWERED ACTION GROUP (EAG) AND SOUTH INDIAN STATES

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 May 2012

P. AROKIASAMY ,
KSHIPRA JAIN ,
SRINIVAS GOLI  and
JALANDHAR PRADHAN
P. AROKIASAMY
Affiliation:
International Institute for Population Sciences, Mumbai, India
KSHIPRA JAIN
Affiliation:
International Institute for Population Sciences, Mumbai, India
SRINIVAS GOLI
Affiliation:
International Institute for Population Sciences, Mumbai, India
JALANDHAR PRADHAN
Affiliation:
Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, National Institute of Technology, Orissa, India
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Summary

As India rapidly urbanizes, within urban areas socioeconomic disparities are rising and health inequality among urban children is an emerging challenge. This paper assesses the relative contribution of socioeconomic factors to child health inequalities between the less developed Empowered Action Group (EAG) states and more developed South Indian states in urban India using data from the 2005–06 National Family Health Survey. Focusing on urban health from varying regional and developmental contexts, socioeconomic inequalities in child health are examined first using Concentration Indices (CIs) and then the contributions of socioeconomic factors to the CIs of health variables are derived. The results reveal, in order of importance, pronounced contributions of household economic status, parent's illiteracy and caste to urban child health inequalities in the South Indian states. In contrast, parent's illiteracy, poor economic status, being Muslim and child birth order 3 or more are major contributors to health inequalities among urban children in the EAG states. The results suggest the need to adopt different health policy interventions in accordance with the pattern of varying contributions of socioeconomic factors to child health inequalities between the more developed South Indian states and less developed EAG states.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Biosocial Science , Volume 45 , Issue 2 , March 2013 , pp. 167 - 185
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

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