National Health Profile 2019: Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan released the 14th edition of the National Health Profile 2019 on October 30, 2019. The Health Minister also released the digital version of the book.
The National Health Profile is prepared by the Central Bureau of Health Intelligence (CBHI). It provides a comprehensive framework on the socio-economic health status and the status of demographic, health finance, health infrastructure and health of human resources in the country.
The National Health Profile was first published in 2005. Ever since the profile has been released every year and this year, is its 14th edition.
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National Health Profile 2019: Everything you need to know
• The National Health Profile helps the government navigate health needs and issues of the population and devise area-specific program strategies. Good-quality data can enable policymakers to make evidence-based policies and aid the effective implementation of various schemes.
• The e-book of the National Health Profile 2019 is a step towards realizing PM Modi’s vision of Digital India. According to the Health Minister, the NHP data should be highly disseminated so that it reaches more people who are looking to develop health interventions or programmes and digital documents enable wider dissemination of information.
• The National Health Profile – 2019 highlights important health information under major indicators such as demographic indicators, socio-economic indicators and health status indicators.
• The demographic indicators include population and vital statistics, socio-economic indicators include employment, education, housing and amenities and sanitation and drinking water and health status indicators include the prevalence of common communicable and non-communicable diseases.
• However, the data is not only important to understand the health indicators in the nation but also to monitor the situation. The NHP 2019 indicates significant progress in various health outcomes in the country.
• Further, the health finance section of the profile provides an overview of health insurance and expenditure on health, including both public and Out of Pocket Expenditure (OOP).
• The human resources section of the data provides an overview of the availability of manpower in the health sector, while the health infrastructure section provides details about the number of medical and dental colleges, nursing and paramedical courses and AYUSH Institutes in the country.
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