Progress and Enduring Challenges for the Health of Children in India

Harvard Center for International Development

Roughly one in every five births occurs in India.  Data reveal that despite improvements in the last decade, Indian children are still among the most unhealthy in the world.  In the state of Uttar Pradesh, which is home to 200 million people, 45 out of every 1000 babies die in the first month of life.  That is a higher rate of neonatal death than any country in the world except Pakistan.  Why does child health remain an enduring challenge for the Indian population?  Despite recent government programs to encourage hospital birth and build toilets, discrimination against women and people from the lower castes continues to harm child health. Today on CID's Speaker Series Podcast, Rohan Sandhu, CID student Ambassador, interviews Diane Coffey, a demographer who studies social influences on health in India. Diane co-directs r.i.c.e., a research institute for compassionate economics, which does research and policy advocacy for child health in India. www.hks.harvard.edu/centers/cid Interview recorded on October 4th, 2019. About Diane: Diane Coffey is a demographer who studies social influences on health in India. One area of her research focuses on the intergenerational transmission of poor population health resulting from India's exceptionally poor maternal nutrition. Another area of her research investigates the causes and consequences of open defecation in rural India. Diane has an MPA and a PhD Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School, and is currently an assistant professor of Sociology and Population Research at the University of Texas at Austin. She co-directs r.i.c.e., a research institute for compassionate economics, which does research and policy advocacy for child health in India. View the transcript for this episode here: https://www.hks.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/centers/cid/files/Transcripts/Transcript-%20Progress%20and%20Enduring%20Challenges%20for%20the%20Health%20of%20Children%20in%20India.pdf