Determinants of Health Status in India

The book comprehensively discusses the various determinants shaping the health sector in India. Based on intensive research, it quantitatively identifies the determinants of health status in India within a macroeconomic framework, taking both the demand and the supply side into consideration. The book also discusses the various economic tools of analysis for understanding the challenges facing the health sector and explains why policy makers should refrain from applying uniform health policies in the urban and the rural sectors: uniform health policies for the urban and the rural sector cannot be expected to yield uniform outcomes, since the two sectors are characterized by two sets of entirely different challenges. The book further examines health challenges and their determinants separately for India’s rural and urban sector. The work also draws attention to the fact that, though finance is extremely important for better health outcomes, how the funds allocated to the health sector are utilised is even more critical. Highlighting the role of health management in this regard, the book provides an in-depth analysis of its role in achieving expected health outcomes, which it claims should constitute a pivotal part of India’s health policies.

Keya Sengupta is a Professor of Economics, Dean, Research, and Chair of Fellow Programme at the Indian Institute of Management Shillong, India. She has been teaching economics to the post graduate and PhD students for about 30 years. Her research of over 35 years was focused on price theory. She later shifted to the study of various aspects of the social sector such as human development, education and health. She has published many papers in this field and has also authored three books on issues of human development, marketed surplus and price theory. Prof. Sengupta was selected for the Indo French Social Scientist exchange programme to visit Maison de La Hommes’, Paris, France, to study the health sector of the country. She has also visited many other countries in connection with various academic assignments. She was also an Associate for three years at the Indian Institute of Advanced Studies, Shimla, India. Prof Sengupta was honoured with the Dewang Mehta Award for the best teacher in Economics in Business Schools for the year 2011 and the National Educational Leadership Award by Economics Times NOW in 2013.