Studies on Health and nutritional status of tribal women in Central India

The National Population Policy (NPP) adopted by the Gov emment of India in 2000 devoted special attention to underserved population groups, and in particular, to tribal communities. To quote the policy: "Tribal populations often have high levels of morbidity, arising from poor nutrition, particularly in situations where they are involuntarily displaced or resettled. Frequently, they have low levels of literacy, coupled with high infant, child and maternal mortality" (p.8). NPP also puts forward an Action Plan to operationalise the strategies advocated in the policy statement. About tribal health, NPP recommends that "Health care providers in the public, private and NGO sectors should be sensitized to adopt a 'burden of dis ease approach to meet special needs of tribal and hill area commu nities" (p.23).

In this context, Dr.Priti Verma Taneja's contribution on Health and Nutritional Status of Tribal Women in Central India de serves special attention. Her background of medical profession, her training at the National Institute of Nutrition (Hyderabad), and her extensive field work in tribal areas of erstwhile Madhya Pradesh have put her in a monopoly position and what she says about tribal health has the seal of authenticity which policymakers, planners and administrators will find valuable.

Researchers in this field know how difficult it is to get reliable data on maternal mortality, infant mortality, pregnancy wastage through abortion and stillbirths, nutritional status, etc. The task is even more formidable in remote tribal areas of States like Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. In this monograph which is a useful com pilation of a series of field studies conducted by Dr. Taneja and her associates, detailed data are presented for topics like weight of preg Tant women, Body Mass index, hemoglobin level, role of ante natal care, involvement of untrained dais, transportation facilities for ANMs, just to give a few examples. There are not many studies where such data are available separately for tribal communities. It is worth noting that according to the most recent (2001) SRS data released by the Registrar General, India, Chhattisgarh has the high est rural Death Rate in India, namely, 11.2 per thousand, followed by Madhya Pradesh (11 per thousand) and Orissa (11 per thou sand), compared to 9.3 in rural India as a whole.

Turning to the rural Infant Mortality Rate (IMR), we find that it was highest in Orissa (99), followed by Chhattisgarh (95), and Madhya Pradesh (94) compared to the all India rural IMR of 74 per thousand. These figures are not available separately for tribal communities. Dr. Taneja's monograph fills this gap at least for some tribal communities in Central India.