The Self Perceived Morbidity and its Determinants in North East India
By Kshetrimayum Rabikan Singh
The concept of health has evolved through ages, from a simple biological concept to a more complex social concept. The health condition of individuals or a group is largely influenced by socio-economic and political environment. Observing social dimension of health is essential to understand the health condition of a population. This study is an attempt to understand how different socio-economic determinants are associated with the level of morbidity in North East India. The health condition across the North East states is found to be varied by different socio-economic characteristics. The illness rate is found to be higher in rural areas than urban areas for North East on an average. The deeply rooted patriarchal Indian society also gets reflected, where women are found to have more illness rate than male in all the North East states, except Sikkim. Social class also found to have significant influence on the health status of the population. Scheduled Caste community has the highest rate of illness among all the social class. Enabling factors like education and income also have significant impact on illness rate.