An Analysis of Health Status in Tamil Nadu

Health services are an important indicator to understand the healthcare delivery provisions and mechanisms
in the State and are subdivided into three categories viz. primary, secondary and tertiary health care systems.
Nutritional status is one of the indicators of the overall well being of population and human resources
development. Malnutrition is the cumulative effect of factors like poverty, inadequate access to food,
illiteracy, large size of families, poor environmental sanitation, lack of basic minimal health care, lack of
personal hygiene, lack of easy access to adequate safe drinking water and lack of awareness. In this study
eighteen determinants, namely number of Primary Health Centers, population per bed ratio, number of
doctors and nurses in primary health centre, population per doctor ratio, female literacy rate, per capita food
availability, PHC per million population, per capita income at current prices, public health expenditure,
literacy rate, employment in organized sector, provision of drinking water villages covered, couple protection
rate, fertility rate, sex ratio, density of population, beds and hospitals are taken as determinants of health
status in Tamil Nadu. The study period is 15 years from 2002-03 to 2016-17. The first objective of the
present study, namely, to study the levels of health in the study area is based entirely on secondary statistics.