Why is the Increasing Burden of Disease one of the Biggest Problems in Indian Healthcare?

Most of the developing countries in the world are in the phase of economic transition and urbanization, giving rise to dietary and lifestyle changes. The modern, urbanized world has made our lives fast-paced, in the sense that we now indulge in more sedentary behaviors and richer diets, which has subsequently contributed to more of obesity-related illnesses rather than under-nutrition. Unfortunately, India is becoming more afflicted with the increasing burden of diseases, in particular, chronic lifestyle NCDs, which are emerging as one of the biggest problems in the healthcare sector. The country is currently witnessing a health crisis that is spanning an entire spectrum of ailments, from communicable diseases and NCDs to the existing scourge of malnutrition.

India, being a country with the vast population, is encountering a unique set of challenges in its healthcare infrastructure, which is over-burdened by the population increase. Moreover, the economic deprivation of the poorer segment of the population has limited their access to quality healthcare, thereby increasing the burden of diseases, owing to poor health, malnutrition, and unsanitary conditions. With the life expectancy increasing considerably, the changing demographic transition has given rise to various NCDs like diabetes, heart diseases, child/maternal malnutrition, all of which lead to a decline in the overall health condition of the population.

The emerging/continuing epidemic of infectious diseases and NCDs or chronic degenerative diseases are often related to the poor implementation of public health programmes and the inadequate public funding. In India, the contribution of non-communicable diseases to disability and death continues to grow at an alarming rate, which means, it is affecting not only the health of people but the entire economy as well.

What Makes the Disease Burden Constantly Rising? 

India is currently facing the effects of the disease burden, and particularly, non-communicable diseases continue to be the reason for the increase in the mortality and morbidity rates. This is mainly because of the lack of environmental sanitation, poor living conditions, unsafe drinking water, malnutrition, and most importantly, limited access to curative and preventive health services, specifically in rural and suburban areas. Moreover, the increasing disease burden is also attributed to lack of awareness, the explosive growth of population, the increasing aging population, and the slow and inadequate government interventions. The lack of primary healthcare providers/professionals and the ill-defined roles of private/public healthcare players stand as the key barriers to combating the growing burden of the diseases in the country.

Besides, the lack of social awareness about the problem is yet another roadblock in building access to healthcare. It is important that the people are adequately educated and well-informed about the symptoms, risks, its consequences, and complications of the diseases so that they can know and choose to access the right treatment available. Also, the low penetration of healthcare insurance is causing further challenges to healthcare accessibility, as most of the population are using out-of-the-pocket expenditure to meet their healthcare expenses, which is ultimately putting them in financial burden. As a result, many low-income segments continue to disregard healthcare as a means to avoid expenses. It is necessary that government increase the accessibility and affordability of public healthcare services to a larger group of population so that it can reduce the disease burden to a greater extent.

What Needs To Be Done? 

In India, it is the rapidly aging population and the lower segments of the population that chiefly need affordable and accessible public health services to meet their healthcare needs, which has developed out of the increasing diseases. When a country’s economic growth does not translate itself to provide better access to healthcare, the growth cannot be considered beneficial. The government expenditure on health in India continues to be low and the states are under financial constraints to work on health-related improvements. Currently, the scale of financial resources to implement healthcare policies is hardly adequate for which the public financing needs to go up substantially.

It is important that the government recognizes the risk factors contributing to the disease burden and improve the diagnosis, prevention, and treatments of diseases, thus, enabling better access to healthcare services for the poor, elderly, and disadvantaged people. Moreover, developing interventions to address the challenges in healthcare and improve the overall outcome of healthcare service and delivery is essential to increase the effectiveness of public healthcare. One of the key challenges here is to create the infrastructure that delivers quality healthcare services, and most importantly, the government has to finance these initiatives and efforts adequately to bring them to fruition.

An integrated patient-centric approach that emphasizes diseases management is the need of the hour. Strengthening and restructuring the healthcare systems would possibly result in a considerable decline in the rate of communicable and non-communicable diseases in India.

In a nutshell, India is presently suffering from health problems and diseases related to both over-nutrition and malnutrition. With the society getting largely urbanized and mechanized, a lot of health transitions and healthcare issues are occurring rapidly, where in particular, the increase in NCDs is of significant prominence. If only the public and private health sectors strengthen their primary care system along with the entire healthcare infrastructure and delivery, it is possible to tackle the deluge of NCDs.

Providing effective primary health care, increasing the accessibility and affordability of healthcare, enhancing the education and awareness about diseases would help overcome the existing challenges in disease prevention and management, thus ensuring effective and outreach of quality healthcare services to the masses.