Publication: Improving Public Health Services: India’s Best Investment
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2025-04-24
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2025-04-24
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Reducing communicable diseases is a key plank of development infrastructure, and little effort is required to build a strong public health system in India, within its existing administrative structures and budgetary outlays. This would go far toward improving people’s well-being and productivity, and avert losses of billions of dollars annually due to various economic impacts of poor health conditions. The national-level technical institutions required are already in place, but their functioning is severely constrained by a lack of autonomy. State-level public health systems need much strengthening, and the central government can incentivize states to do this by tying its budgetary support to the following action by states: (1) Separate their Directorates for Public Health and for Medical Services, with separate budgets to avoid marginalizing public health services in favor of medical services — following the simple model of the state of Tamil Nadu, whose impressive system of public health management generates very good health outcomes despite spending no more than the national average. (2) Adopt modern public health legislation, providing the legal basis for action to protect public health. (3) Revitalize the grassroots male health worker cadre, responsible for environmental and public health — following the model of Sri Lanka’s Public Health Inspectors, with its outstanding training curriculum, manuals, and supervisory guidelines. (4) Assure a steady flow of needed supplies, modelled on the Tamil Nadu Medical Services Corporation. Tamil Nadu and Sri Lanka offer simple low-cost models for strengthening public health systems across India, within current health budgets and administrative structures. This would greatly improve people’s health in India and support the country’s effort to become a developed economy.
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“Das Gupta, Monica. 2025. Improving Public Health Services: India’s Best Investment. Health, Nutrition and Population (HNP) Discussion Paper; February 2025. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/43121 License: CC BY-NC 3.0 IGO.”
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