Regulatory challenges associated with the rapid spread of health markets

Dr Barun Kanjilal of IIHMR gives an overview of the regulatory challenges associated with the rapid spread of health markets in India to the Health System Reform in Asia conference held in Hong Kong in early December 2011. He notes in particular the important role that informal providers have played in delivering health services in the wake of government reforms.

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Understanding informal markets: The roles and perspectives of RMPs in West Bengal and Karnataka, India

Dr Asha George of JHSPH presents work on the role of informal health care providers in India at the Health System Reform in Asia conference held in December 2011 in Hong Kong. She compares West Bengal and Karnataka -- two states with very different health profiles -- providing both qualitative and quantitative insights into how and why the poor use poorly trained rural medical practitioners as their first port of call when accessing health services.

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WP16 - Child health in the Sundarbans: How far mutually reinforcing shocks act as contextual determinants?

Childhood chronic undernutrition and common childhood illness is highly prevalent in the Sundarbans delta region of West Bengal, India. The present work tested the hypothesis- frequent climatic shock is likely to predispose chronic and transient health shocks through behavioural responses of households in the presence of inaccessibility, inadequacy and acceptability barriers which act in the economy as long wave shocks.

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Quality of underground health care: A case study of Indian RMPs

Barun Kanjilal of the Indian Institute of Health Management Research (IIHMR) presents on the role of rural medical practitioners (RMPs) in 'underground' health care in India. The presentation was given on 9 July 2011 to the Private Sector in Health pre-congress symposium at iHEA 2011 in Toronto.

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WP15 - Nutritional Status of Children in India: Household Socio-Economic Condition as the Contextual Determinant

Despite recent achievement in economic progress in India, the fruit of development has failed to secure a better nutritional status among all children of the country. Growing evidence suggest there exists a socioeconomic gradient of childhood malnutrition in India. The present paper is an attempt to measure the extent of socio-economic inequality in chronic childhood malnutrition across major states of India and to realize the role of household socio-economic status (SES) as the contextual determinant of nutritional status of children.

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