Health module is presented in five major components namely, Demography, Health Status Indicators, Health Infrastructure, Human Resources in Health and Health Education Facilities. Data are culled out from two publications – National Health profile and Statistical Report of Sample Registration Survey (SRS). However, data on Health Finance are compiled from state finances published in RBI Bulletin.

National Health Profile was earlier published as “Health Information of India” from 1986 to 2004 and as “Health Statistics of India” prior to 1986. As the publication has undergone changes over the period, the data provided has also changed over period. Hence, data series pertaining to some variables was discrete and inconsistent. Such variables are highlighted in the respective sections.

While the National Health Profile is the major source of data, Statistical Report of SRS is primarily used for data on fertility and mortality indicators. SRS reports have been providing relatively consistent data over a period.

Demography

This section covers details of population, various indicators of fertility and mortality as per the major sources. Data has been compiled from 1980 onwards. Indicators of fertility and mortality are annual data series, culled out from the reports of Sample Registration System while the population data are decadal and compiled from the respective census reports.

Population:

This module covers age-group wise population data for four decades (1981, 1991, 2001 and 2011) from census reports.

Fertility Indicators:

Fertility indicators covered in this section include crude birth rate (CBR), general fertility rate (GFR), age specific fertility rates (ASFRs), age specific marital fertility rates (ASMFRs) in rural and urban areas across various age groups. The fertility rates of women with various educational levels were also presented. Data has been compiled from 1980 onwards.

Mortality:

This section provides data on death or mortality rates with respect to male, female and total persons at various age-group levels in rural urban area across states and all-India. Data are presented from 1979 onwards.

Health Status Indicators

Health status section provides state-wise details regarding various diseases and disorders affecting health of country’s population, which is one of the significant factors in gauging wellbeing of the community.

The indicators have been broadly classified under communicable and non-communicable diseases. There are about 30 communicable diseases include malaria, dengue, pneumonia, diphtheria, etc, and four non-communicable diseases including suicides, snake bites, cancer cases and mental disorders covered in this section.

The data are further categorised into male, female, total persons, cases and deaths though for some diseases for some period deaths and gender specific data are not available.

The data are compiled from various issues of Health Statistics of India /Health Information in India /National Health Profile from 1980 onwards. However, the data availability is not consistent across all the variables and is discrete with respect some diseases as it was not published in the source.

Health Infrastructure

Health Infrastructure covers state-wise indicators regarding various public healthcare services namely government hospitals and beds in rural and urban areas, government and private blood banks, AYUSH hospitals and dispensaries, sub-centres, community health centres, primary health centres, government mental hospitals.

Data pertaining to infrastructural facilities are compiled from various issues of Health Statistics of India /Health Information in India /National Health Profile from 1980 onwards. However, the data related to ‘allopathic hospitals & beds in rural & urban areas’, ‘infrastructure in tribal areas’ and ‘hospitals and dispensaries categorised ownership wise’ is available from 2002, 2001 and 2002 respectively. Data on hospital beds attached with allopathic medical colleges are available only from 2011 onwards.

Health Manpower

Health manpower is one of the most crucial and quintessential section of the health care system. The delivery of proper health care services rests upon the manpower deployed. This section provides data relates to different types of manpower and their availability at the All India and State level, and further in urban, rural and tribal areas.

Broadly, this section is divided into four segments, as follows:

i) Doctors and Surgeons registered with Medical Councils: Doctors and Surgeons registered with Medical Councils since 1959 and Dental Surgeons registered under Dental Councils since 1954. Data for Government Allopathic Doctors and Dental Surgeons has also been provided from 1991 and 1998, respectively.

ii) Registered Nurses, Midwives and Health Visitors: Based on the classificatory changes and the way data had been presented in the past, this sub-section has been bifurcated into two major periods - 1961 to 1987, and 1988 onwards. The former period presents data for Nurses, Midwives, Auxiliary Nursing Midwives/ Health Workers and Health Visitors. The latter period 1988 onwards has data for Auxiliary Nurse Midwives, Registered Nurses and Registered Midwives and Lady Health Visitors.

iii) Registered Pharmacists available from 1961.

iv) Registered AYUSH Doctors: The traditional system of continues to remain as significant branches of medicine that provides cure to ailments/diseases with its old and unique therapies and medicine. The system Ayurveda, Yoga, Unani and Siddha were considered under the Indian System of Medicine (ISM) with the stream of Homeopathy and the practitioners were termed as ISM and Homeopathic practitioners. In order to further develop the provision of facilities under these systems of medicines, the Department of Indian System of Medicine and Homeopathy (ISM&H) was set up in 1995. In 2003, Homeopathy and Naturopathy were also incorporated under it and, the ISM&H was renamed as Department of Ayurveda, Yoga and Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homoeopathy (AYUSH). The data for AYUSH practitioners is provided from 1969.

The data presented in this section has been collected from various publications of Ministry of Health and Family Welfare such as the National Health Profile (from 2005 to latest), Health Information of India (from 1986 to 2004), Health Statistics of India (from 1961 to 1975 and 1981 to 1985) and Pocket Book of Health Statistics (from 1976 to 1980).

Health Manpower in Urban Area

With a special focus to provide equitable and quality primary health care services to the urban population especially the slum and vulnerable sections of the Society, the National Urban Health Mission (NUHM) was approved in 2013 (Rural Health Statistics 2019, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare).

This section provides data for health manpower in urban area under three broad categories:

i) Doctors and Specialists.

ii) Nursing Staff and Health Workers.

iii) Pharmacists, Laboratory Technicians and Radiographers.

These data have been collected from various issues of Rural Health Statistics, published by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.

Health Manpower in Rural Area

To improve health care services in rural areas, Indian Public Health Standards (IPHS) have been prescribed for staffing pattern. The availability of different types of rural health manpower data have been classified in terms of the status of their posts such as required, sanctioned, vacant and in-position. This section provides availability of health manpower in rural area under three broad heads:

i) Doctors, Dental Surgeons and Specialists.

ii) Nursing Staff, Health Workers, Health Assistants and Health Supervisors.

iii) Pharmacists, Laboratory Technicians, Radiographers and Block Extension Educators.

Most of the data-sets are available from 1980. The data presented in this section has been collected from various publications of Ministry of Health and Family Welfare such as the Rural Health Statistics (from 2005 to latest), Health Information of India (from 1986 to 2004) and Health Statistics of India (from 1980 to 1985).

Health Manpower in Tribal Areas

The section has been classified under three broad heads as follows:

i) Doctors, Dental Surgeons and Specialists.

ii) Nursing Staff, Health Workers and Health Assistants.

iii) Pharmacists, Laboratory Technicians and Radiographers.

For most of these categories, data is available from 2005. The data presented in this section has been collected from various issues of Rural Health Statistics (from 2005 to latest), published by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.

Health Education Facilities

Health Education Facilities covers educational infrastructure facilities providing indicators namely number of colleges with their admission capacity of Allopathic medicine, AYUSH or various alternative medicines (undergraduate and post-graduate colleges).

This segment also includes data pertaining to colleges providing post graduate diploma courses, MD, MS, MCH courses, super-speciality courses and also regarding training centres for different courses in Nursing.

The data are compiled from various issues of Health Statistics of India /Health Information in India /National Health Profile from 1980 onwards. Although efforts have been made to compile data from 1980 onwards, there was no consistency in the data availability as published by the main source with respect to some indicators.

1. Data on Allopathic medical colleges and PG-Diploma courses are available from 2011 onwards
2. Data on Post graduate colleges of AYUSH are available from 1994 to 2001
3. Data on Diploma in Pharmacy are available from 1980 to 2005
4. Data on number of training centres are available from 1987 to 1992

Health Finance

The data essentially consist of a summary of receipts and expenditure in both revenue and capital accounts. These data have been compiled from RBI’s annual study on state finances published in RBI Bulletin from 1980-81 onwards. The periodicity of data is Annual and the time lag is about a year. The data for All-India refers to total of all states.