PUBLIC HEALTH DATA CONSTRAINTS IN INDIA

Back to Page Authors: Krishna Kant Sharma

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Keywords: public health data, health indicators in India, health information management systems, public health data demarcation

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Abstract: This paper presents deficiencies in public health data in India. After a dedicated survey of selected villages and urban wards, it was found that the existing public health data system in India was suffering from a major problem of demarcation especially in terms of different social groups, rural-urban, and public-private divides. Health indicators in India were exhibited by various national and international agencies, however, most of them were largely based upon the sampled survey. With the methods adopted by them, it was not possible to demarcate them in appropriate terms. As a result, a level of data chauvinism, data morphs, and data dwarfs persisted in India. It was possible to present realistic data, maintaining all those demarcations which ultimately made the public health planning, policy, and programming very tentative and deficient. Moreover, an effective Health Information Management System (HMIS) could not be properly developed and put in place.

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