Unit 1

Major Public Health and Lifestyle

Issues in India

Dr. Rajesh Agrawal

Associate Professor
Major public health and
Lifestyle issues in India
Malnutrition:
Malnutrition can be described as the unhealthy
condition that results from not eating enough
healthy food.
A well-nourished child is one whose weight and
height measurements within the standard norms
as compare to the healthy children of same age and
sex.
Protein-Energy Malnutrition (PEM); Iron
deficiency; Vitamin A deficiency; Iodine
deficiency; Foliate deficiency are the major forms
of malnutrition.
High Infant Mortality Rate:
Lives continue to be lost to early childhood diseases,
inadequate new-born care and childbirth-related
causes.
More than two million children die every year from
preventable infections.
Poor sanitation:
•Number of households have no toilets, lack access to
latrines, defecate in the open.

•Open air defecation leads to the spread of disease

through parasitic and bacterial infections.
 Unsafe drinking water:
Several million people suffer from multiple
episodes of diarrhoea, Hepatitis A, enteric
(typhoid) fever, intestinal worms and eye and skin
infections caused by unsafe drinking water.
This problem is exacerbated by falling levels of
groundwater caused mainly by increasing
extraction for irrigation.
Insufficient maintenance of the environment
around water sources, groundwater pollution,
excessive arsenic and fluoride in drinking water
pose a major threat to India's health.
Poor lifestyle health issue:
Smoking cigarettes, drug addiction, over
consumption of alcohol etc.
Poor diet whether it is overeating or an overly
constrictive diet.
Inactivity can also contribute to health issues
Lack of sleep, stress and neglect of oral hygiene.
Anti natural body clock activities
 Mental illness:
Mental illness can seriously impair, temporarily or
permanently, the mental functioning of a person.
Examples: Schizophrenia (breakdown in the
relation between thought, emotion, and behaviour,
leading to faulty perception, inappropriate actions
and feelings, withdrawal from reality and personal
relationships into fantasy and delusion, and a sense
of mental fragmentation), ADHD (Attention deficit
hyperactivity disorder), major depressive
disorder, bipolar disorder, anxiety disorder,
post-traumatic stress disorder and autism
(brain development) etc.
Bodily injuries:
These injuries, including broken bones, fractures,
and burns can reduce a person's quality of life or can
cause fatalities including infections that resulted
from the injury or the severity injury in general.

Genetic disorders:
that are inherited by the person and can vary in how
much they affects the person and when they surface.
 Communicable Diseases
Communicable diseases are also known as infectious
diseases associated with poor awareness, poor
hygiene and poor sanitation.
Infectious pathogens include some viruses, bacteria,
fungi, protozoa, multi-cellular parasites, aberrant
proteins or other micro-organisms.
These pathogens are the cause of disease outbreaks,
epidemics, and common health problems.
Transmission of pathogen can occur in various ways,
including - physical contact, contaminated food,
body fluids, objects, airborne inhalation, or through
vector organisms.
Mortality related to them is usually for not being able to
avail of services.
During the past three decades more than 30 new
organisms have been identified worldwide including -
HIV, Vibrio cholera, SARS, Corona virus, Avian
Influenza virus A, and novel H1N1 Influenza virus etc.
The top single killer agents/diseases are HIV/AIDS, TB
(Tuberculosis), Malaria, Dengue, Leprosy etc.
Childhood diseases include – pertussis (kali khansi),
polio, diphtheria, measles, tetanus, lower
respiratory and diarrhoea.
The common water-borne infections are – Gastroenteritis,
Cholera, and some forms of Hepatitis, Skin disease
 Non Communicable Diseases
This is also known as poor lifestyle health disease.
Non-communicable diseases are the leading causes
of death in the country.
A large proportion of these deaths occurred during
the most productive period of life.
The modifiable behavioural risk factors are -
working environment,
dietary habits,
nutritional deficiency disorders,
physical activity levels,
Tobacco, alcohol or any other drug addiction
These precipitate the development of physiological
risk factors like -
malnutrition,
obesity,
raised blood pressure,
deranged blood glucose,
dyslipidemia (cholesterol related)
Leading to the ultimate progression to disease outcomes
like
 Stroke,
 Diabetes,
 Cardio-vascular diseases ,
 Coronary artery disease or Coronary heart disease,
 Rheumatic heart diseases (heart valve failure in children),
 Cancer,
 Deafness,
 Blindness,
 Mental disorder.
These diseases are largely preventable through effective
interventions.