Socio-economic inequalities in health care and nutritional status across the newly-formed states of India: Uttarakhand, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh

Sandhya Mahapatro, Institute for Social and Economic Change

Although primary health care centres (PHC) have been set up as a part of government’s ‘Health for All’ programme, still there exist huge inequalities in health care and nutritional status in the society, particularly among the poor sections of population. This paper attempts to examine inequalities in health care and nutritional status between the caste groups in three newly formed states of India and examines how far inequalities are as a result of social stratification or due to differential in economic condition of an individual belonging to different caste groups. Bivariate analysis is used to examine the extent of inequalities between caste and income groups using NFHS-3. Logistic regression analysis used to ascertain the individual effect of socio-economic factors in health and nutritional status after controlling for other factors. The findings shows not caste but wealth quintile is a significant predictor and inequality persist in ANC and safe delivery.