Status of Preventive Health Care in Bihar: A District Level Study

This study tries to examine preventive health care services that diminish the possibility of exposure to diseases through improvement and accessibility to safe drinking water and sanitation facilities. Though some of the studies deal with the issue, most of them are concerned for national or state level. The district level study on the status of preventive health care is very limited. This study will consider all the districts of Bihar. We first reviewed the performance of Bihar in some public programmes such as total sanitation campaign (TSC) and outcome indicators from a comparative perspective. Then, a preventive health care index (PHCI) is constructed for all 38 districts of Bihar using the census data 2011. This index is a composite index of the four components, namely, bathroom index, drainage index, latrine index and safe drinking water index. An attempt has also been made to find out the determinants of PHCI. This shows that literacy, income and urbanization have a positive and significant impact on PHCI. Some area dummies are also positively significant. This suggests that Bihar requires a district-specific policy to be adopted for the improvement of preventive health care. Public programmes meant for the expansion of sanitation and drinking water facility need to be implemented effectively and efficiently.