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ECONOMICS OF HEALTH |
Nagpaul DR and Vishwanath MK: Proceed 22nd Natl
TB & Chest Dis Workers Conf, Hyderabad, 1967, 279-300. |
Health has been defined as the state of perfect
physical, social and mental wellbeing which is somewhat an abstract
definition. In this paper economics of health is measured through
economics of sickness. Because sickness is experienced, it can be
measured and it inflicts physical social and economic sufferings.
In a community, economic prosperity is directly dependent on quantum
of sickness and its prevention by health services. A sociological
enquiry into part played by disease in the socio economic development
of society was made by carrying out a study in two village population
groups. The social investigators of NTI made deep probing questions
to elicit presence of symptoms, action taken by them, money spent
on treatment and the loss of wages. In first study observation
participation technique was also adopted. The investigators
lived in the village for four months. In the other study 20% households
of those 22 villages which participated earlier in an epidemiological
survey conducted by NTI, were interviewed.
Findings of two studies are combined and presented.
Illnesses were classified into major and minor on the basis of clinical
severity and the duration of symptoms. In both the studies 60% of
all persons were asymptomatic during 2 months prior to the interview.
About 18% had one minor illness, 13% had major illness and only
3% had one major and one minor illness. The quantum of multiple
disease (3 or more) occurring in one person was less than 2%. Only
20% of living man days were spent as sick man days. The average
annual loss on account of health reasons per family has been estimated
to be Rs.90 and Rs.15/ per capita. The overall economic loss due
to sickness, direct and indirect amounted to 3% of the per capita
income in the poorer groups of villages and 6% in the economically
more favourable placed villages. The material available here strongly
suggests that the sizes of households will not have much influence
over the sickness in the community. Another significant feature
of this study was the phenomenon- of substitution within the family
whenever the wage earner could not go to work. The evidence examined
in this paper suggests that the actual economic loss is only 1/3
of the calculated loss. It also suggests that the overall cost of
sickness to the individuals and family is far less than what is
normally calculated and is influenced by the money available in
the household.
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KEY WORDS: PHYSICAL SUFFERING, ILLNESS, HEALTH
ECONOMICS, COMMUNITY. |