India
India is a country diverse in geography, people and cultural traditions. With a vibrant economy, India enjoys many features of growth and development. Not all Indians benefit from their country’s economic boom, however, and a wide gap between rich and poor shows in the different levels of available health care.
India’s health care challenges include a high rate of maternal and child death—every five minutes an Indian woman dies in childbirth. Uttar Pradesh, the largest of India’s 28 states, sees one quarter of the country’s infant mortality. Together, Uttar Pradesh and the neighboring state of Jharkhand have some of the highest maternal and child death rates in the world.
Through USAID’s Vistaar Project, IntraHealth is working with the governments of India, Uttar Pradesh and Jharkhand to improve maternal, neonatal and child health care in northern India. The state governments are poised to scale up a number of the best practices known to improve health care among vulnerable groups, such as the promotion of skilled attendance at childbirth, anemia prevention and treatment and complementary feeding. Local partners include the Federation of Obstetric and Gynecological Societies of India, the India Academy of Pediatrics, the National Neonatology Forum and several local NGOs.
Our efforts are focused on:
- Facilitating evidence reviews of maternal, neonatal and children’s health interventions to establish which are the most effective
- Supporting demonstration and learning projects to fill critical knowledge gaps regarding working interventions
- Promoting recommended health care models for adoption at the national level
- Building the capacity of the government and its partners to support the adoption of the recommended models throughout India.
IntraHealth’s current work in northern India builds on our achievements in Uttar Pradesh during USAID’s PRIME II Project (1999–2004). During that project IntraHealth helped train 25,000 primary health care providers in family planning and reproductive health services. We also helped to introduce Community Partnerships for Safe Motherhood in 30 communities.
Through funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, we have also worked with Population Services International to reduce sexually transmitted infections among males at high risk in Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu. More information on our work with this project, completed in September, 2007, is available here.
More information on IntraHealth's work in India can be downloaded here.
Donors/Projects: USAID (the Vistaar Project)
Partners, the Vistaar Project: Abt Associates, Catholic Relief Services and Johns Hopkins University's Center for Communication Programs
Selected health statistics for India (WHO, accessed July 2007):
Life expectancy, in years (m/f): 62, 64
Probability of dying under 5 years of age (per 1000 live births): 74
Adult prevalence of HIV/AIDS: 0.4–1.3%
Maternal mortality (per 100,000 live births): 540
India map provided by USAID/India.