2 results
Utilisation of public healthcare services by an indigenous group: a mixed-method study among Santals of West Bengal, India
- Arupendra Mozumdar, Bhubon Mohan Das, Tanaya Kundu Chowdhury, Subrata K. Roy
-
- Journal:
- Journal of Biosocial Science / Volume 56 / Issue 3 / May 2024
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 22 February 2024, pp. 518-541
-
- Article
- Export citation
-
A barrier to meeting the goal of universal health coverage in India is the inequality in utilisation of health services between indigenous and non-indigenous people. This study aimed to explore the determinants of utilisation, or non-utilisation, of public healthcare services among the Santals, an indigenous community living in West Bengal, India. The study holistically explored the utilisation of public healthcare facilities using a framework that conceptualised service coverage to be dependent on a set of determinants – viz. the nature and severity of the ailment, availability, accessibility (geographical and financial), and acceptability of the healthcare options and decision-making around these further depends on background characteristics of the individual or their family/household. This cross-sectional study adopts ethnographic approach for detailed insight into the issue and interviewed 422 adult members of Santals living in both rural (Bankura) and urban (Howrah) areas of West Bengal for demographic, socio-economic characteristics and healthcare utilisation behaviour using pre-tested data collection schedule. The findings revealed that utilisation of the public healthcare facilities was low, especially in urban areas. Residence in urban areas, being female, having higher education, engaging in salaried occupation and having availability of private allopathic and homoeopathic doctors in the locality had higher odds of not utilising public healthcare services. Issues like misbehaviour from the health personnel, unavailability of medicine, poor quality of care, and high patient load were reported as the major reasons for non-utilisation of public health services. The finding highlights the importance of improving the availability and quality of care of healthcare services for marginalised populations because these communities live in geographically isolated places and have low affordability of private healthcare. The health programme needs to address these issues to improve the utilisation and reduce the inequality in healthcare utilisation, which would be beneficial for all segments of Indian population.
nine - Health status and lifestyle of the Oraon tea garden labourers of Jalpaiguri district, West Bengal
- Edited by Martin Hyde, Swansea University, Holendro Singh Chungkham, Indian Statistical Institute Chennai Centre, Laishram Ladusingh
-
- Book:
- Work and Health in India
- Published by:
- Bristol University Press
- Published online:
- 09 April 2022
- Print publication:
- 13 December 2017, pp 177-190
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
-
Summary
Introduction
India is one of the leading countries in producing and exporting tea all over the world. According to the 61th Annual Report of Tea Board, India produced 1.2 billion kilograms and exported 207 million kilograms of tea in 2014. This made it the second largest producer and exporter of tea after China (Tea Board of India, 2015). The tea industry is basically an agro-industry which depends largely on the work of manual labourers for its production. Given the heavily reliance on manual labour across the industry it is crucial to ensure that the workforce remains healthy. Poor health represents not only a threat to the person's well-being but to the economic fortunes of the companies involved. Studies have shown that healthy workers are more likely to be productive workers. Therefore, it is important to keep the tea garden labourers healthy. However, at present the health of tea garden labourers and the factors that affect it are not very well understood. On the basis of government regulation (Plantation Act, 1951), the tea garden authorities are required to provide medical facilities and other services such as subsidised food, free accommodation, piped running water and primary education for the children of labourers. It might well appear that access to these benefits should ensure that the workforce remains in good health. However, it is not clear whether this is the case as several studies have reported adverse health conditions among tea garden labourers (Biswas et al., 2002; Mittal and Srivastava, 2006; Medhi et al., 2006; Kundu et al., 2013). This presents an apparent paradox. Therefore, we hypothesised poor socioeconomic conditions may not the sole determinant of health but rather that the lifestyles and health behaviours of the labourers may play the key role in influencing their health.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has defined lifestyle as ‘a way of living based on identifiable patterns of behaviour which are determined by the interplay between an individual's personal characteristics, social interactions, and socioeconomic and environmental living conditions’ (WHO, 1998). To be more precise, the term lifestyle includes all human behaviours of day-to-day living. This is a complex and multidimensional concept.