JOIN USWith the country witnessing major epidemiological transformation, the central government has begun a new programme to generate disease burden data from each state to plan state-specific intervention strategies.
“The first set of reports would come out in 2016 and we would continue to refine these reports for the next five years. This would make planning of health programmes more specific and target oriented,” Lalit Dandona, distinguished research professor at the Public Health Foundation of India, who spearheads the project told Deccan Herald.
The PFHI has joined hands with the Indian Council of Medical Research and Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington for the project.
India's huge population makes it the best place to generate state-level disease burden models. Over the last 25 years, the burden of premature death and health loss due to non-infectious conditions like heart disease, stroke, diabetes, chronic obstructive lung disease and road traffic increased massively while the burden due to lower respiratory infections, tuberculosis, diarrhoea and neonatal disorders decreased.