Statsguru: From Anaemia to tobacco use, six charts show health warnings

The World Health Organization (WHO) has sounded a warning on global health goals for 2030.There are signs of slower improvement than before on a number of health indicators, according to the recently released World Health Statistics 2023 report. It has warned that progress slowed or stagnated on multiple health indicators since 2015, even before the Covid-19 pandemic disruption. Both India and its emerging market peers slipped on key indicators in this period, according to a Business Standard analysis of WHO data over the years. For example, there has been limited progress on anaemia, which affects more than half of Indian women. Many emerging market peers show a similar trend (chart 1).

Health targets are among the sustainable development goals, which countries signed up for in 2015, hoping to achieve them by 2030. The latest WHO warning comes after a similar one about India falling behind on these goals in an earlier study published this year in The Lancet journal. The Lancet study highlighted indicators such as safety of women, child nutrition, and the prevalence of tobacco usage. Around a fifth of women and girls between the ages of 15 and 49 years faced violence from their partners in the past twelve months, showed WHO data. This is higher than south-east Asia overall (chart 2). India is better off in terms of overweight children, but over 30 per cent show signs of stunting (charts 3,4).

India reduced its tobacco prevalence from 31.1 per cent in 2015 to 26.9 per cent in 2020. It, however, remains higher than China, Russia, and Brazil (chart 5).The use of tobacco is associated with a higher risk of cancer, heart attacks, respiratory illness, and diabetes. Indians have a higher risk (21.9 per cent) of premature death from these four major non-communicable diseases than their emerging market peers, barring Russia (24.2 per cent). There has been limited improvement in India’s risk profile in recent years (chart 6).

 

The Lancet study mentioned earlier seemed to suggest focusing on certain regions may help. 

The worst-off districts are concentrated in Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, and Odisha.