The Social Determinants of Health in India

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xxvii

   PDF

2. Palimpsests of ‘Social Determinants of Health’—From Historical Conceptions to Contemporary Practice in Global and Indian Public Health

   • Devaki Nambiar

   Pages 1-17

3. Conceptualization

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 19-19

      PDF

   2. Putting the ‘Social’ Back in: Social Determinants of Health as a Methodological Lens

      • Arima Mishra

      Pages 21-33

   3. Conceptual Issues of Conflict as a Social Determinant of Health: Explorations from Manipur

      • Veda Yumnam, Rajib Dasgupta

      Pages 35-50

   4. Deconstructing the Urban Transition: Conceptualization, Measurement and Mechanisms

      • Nandita Bhan

      Pages 51-69

   5. Missing the Forest—The Significance of the Distal in Social Determinants of Health

      • Indira Chakravarthi

      Pages 71-86

4. Operationalization

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 87-87

      PDF

   2. Shram Jeevani: Special Task Force Report on Women’s Labor in the Informal Economy in Bihar

      • Sushmita Goswami

      Pages 89-102

   3. Who’s in Charge of Social Determinants of Health? Understanding the Office of the Municipal Health Officer in Urban Areas

      • Prathibha Ganesan, Devaki Nambiar, T. Sundararaman

      Pages 103-115

   4. Scaling-Up a Community-Based Approach to SDH: Reflections on the SEWA Experience

      • Sapna Desai

      Pages 117-127

5. Oversight

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 129-129

      PDF

   2. Promoting Intersectoral Action on Menstrual Health and Hygiene Management: Arriving at a Framework and Indicators to Inform Policy and Programs

      • Arundati Muralidharan

      Pages 131-151

   3. Chhattisgarh Swasth Panchayat Yojana: Convergent Community Action for Health and Its Determinants in Rural India

      • Samir Garg

      Pages 153-169

   4. When People Wake up the Anganwadi—Community Monitoring and Action in Maharashtra Is Making Child Nutrition Services Accountable and Effective

      • Shweta Marathe, Abhay Shukla

      Pages 171-188

   5. Social Determinants of Maternal Health: Dead Women Talking

      • Renu Khanna, B. Subha Sri

      Pages 189-207

   6. Weaving It Together: Concepts, Methods and Indicators

      • Devaki Nambiar, Arundati Muralidharan

      Pages 209-217

6. Back Matter

   Pages 219-226

   PDF

Drawing from the work of academics and practitioners from ten states across the country, this edited volume showcases and synthesises the diversity and richness of efforts to understand and act on the social determinants of health in India, the conditions in which we are born, grow, live work and age. Such an effort is salient in the current era of Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), which have  foregrounded the issue of equity and the need for a comprehensive, multi-sectoral agenda for health and development. In India, particularly in the last decade, there have been myriad efforts to more critically theorise and intervene in areas with bearing on health,  like conflict, nutrition or urbanisation, or to address the concerns of vulnerable groups like women, children and the elderly. From these efforts emerge lessons of convergence for academic and policymaking institutions in India who are looking to operationalise and bring life to the SDG agenda in India and other Low and Middle Income Country settings. The book comprises eleven chapters and six short commentaries that appear in conversation with each other, as well as an annexure of validated, ready-to-use indicators for monitoring of social determinants of health.

• Alma Ata declaration
• health equity
• draft National Health Policy
• conflict as a social determinant of health
• urban health in India
• child nutrition services
• community based health services
• maternal mortality in India
• institutional structures for public health
• universal health coverage
• menstrual health and hygiene management
• health in rural India
• universal access to healthcare

• The George Institute for Global Health, New Delhi, India

  Devaki Nambiar

• WASH in Health and Nutritions, WASH in Schools, WaterAid India, New Delhi, India

  Arundati Muralidharan

Devaki Nambiar is a Senior Research Scientist at the Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI) who employs social science theory and mixed methods to understand and address health inequalities and social exclusion in health systems of resource-poor settings. She concurrently supports post-graduate training and capacity building in health policy and systems research as an Associate Professor at the Indian Institute of Public Health – Delhi. She is also a Bernard Lown Scholar at the Harvard School of Public Health working with community health workers on improving access to primary health care services related to non-communicable diseases. She has a doctorate in Public Health (PhD) from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Arundati Muralidharan is Manager Policy for WASH in Health and Nutrition, Schools at WaterAid India. From 2012-2016, she was a Senior Research Fellow at PHFI. As a public health practitioner and qualitative researcher, Arundati isinterested in addressing the factors that underlie and influence health and health behaviour, with the aim to identify and promote effective, evidence-based strategies. Her focus is on water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) and gender. She has a Masters in Medical and Psychiatric Social Work from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences in Mumbai and a Doctorate in Public Health (DrPH) from Boston University. 

Policies and ethics