Average infant mortality falls by 30% over a decade
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COMMENTS 
The overall drop in infant mortality seems to suggest that welfare measures are working. But at 50 live births per 1,000, it’s still too high to meet the MDG target of 28
Recent data from the latest Sample Registration System (SRS) report released by the census office in New Delhi shows that the infant mortality rate in India has declined by 30% over the past 10 years.
The average infant mortality rate for the whole country was 50 per 1,000 live births in 2009.
Infant mortality is an important indicator of the health status of people in a country, and of the quality of health services provided. India’s figures have been among the worst in the world. Unicef reported in 2010 that around 5,000 children under the age of 5 die every day in India; nearly half of all children in India are malnourished.
The new data therefore comes as a pleasant surprise, though it is still much higher than the MDG target of 28 per 1,000 live births by 2015.
The most significant improvements have occurred in the states of Tamil Nadu, where IMR has been cut by 46%, West Bengal which cut its IMR by 37%, and Maharashtra which saw a 35% decline in IMR. Orissa, with a poor IMR of 65, has nevertheless improved its IMR by 33%; Karnataka has seen a 29% improvement. Kerala continues to be the best performing state with an IMR of just 12.
Delhi is the only major state that has seen a worsening of IMR, particularly in rural areas. This is attributed to large settlements of slum-dwellers in the rural periphery of Delhi and the consequent lack of civic amenities and poor living conditions.
The worst states are Rajasthan (IMR: 59), Assam (61), Uttar Pradesh (63), Orissa (65), and Madhya Pradesh (67).
Poverty is a major determinant of health, and poverty alleviation schemes like the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS), better health delivery schemes and systems such as the Janani Suraksha Yojana that encourage institutional deliveries, and better civic amenities, particularly clean drinking water, are believed to be behind the improved figures.
Tamil Nadu has benefited from its better healthcare delivery system reaching down to the grassroots, as has Maharashtra. West Bengal has not done well in implementing the National Rural Health Mission; its success is being attributed to a strong panchayat system. There is also greater access to hospitals in West Bengal. Seventy-nine per cent of all hospitalisation cases in rural areas were dealt with at government hospitals in rural Bengal -- that’s miles above the all-India average of 42%. The state also rarely reports female infanticide, and the infant mortality rate between boys and girls is the same, at 33.
The all-India IMR by sex is 49 for males and 52 for females. The widest disparities are in Jammu and Kashmir (41 males and 51 females), Haryana (48 males and 53 females), Maharashtra (28 males and 33 females), and Assam (58 males and 64 females). Bihar, like West Bengal, has a figure of 52 males and females; Meghalaya too has the same, at 59.
The positive impact of programmes like the Janani Suraksha Yojana that encourages institutional deliveries was clearly seen in the decline in baby deaths in rural Chhattisgarh and Orissa, both economically backward states.
The SRS report also highlights the continuing crisis of urban healthcare. Infant mortality declined by only 23% in a decade in urban areas across India, as opposed to a 27% decline in rural areas. Two states, Karnataka and Assam, showed an increase in baby deaths in urban areas, while urban Delhi remained unchanged for the past 10 years.
Improved civic amenities have also impacted favourably on health in West Bengal. Between 2002 and 2008, households with an improved source of drinking water increased from a mere 25% to 91%, according to the third District-Level Household and Facility Survey (DLHS-3) conducted by the Ministry of Health. Since waterborne diseases are one of the biggest killers for babies, this factor likely helped bring down the infant mortality rate.
The Sample Registration System (SRS) is a large-scale demographic survey for providing reliable annual estimates of birth rate, death rate and other fertility and morality indicators at the national and sub-national levels. The SRS sample is replaced every 10 years based on the latest census frame.
The latest survey covered 15 lakh households, or nearly 72 lakh people. It was done in 2009.
States showing the greatest improvements in IMR States with best IMR figures |
Source: www.jagranjosh.com, May 2011
www.censusofindia.com, May 2011