Revisiting the Kerala Model of Health

The Indian state of Kerala has received considerable amount of attraction internationally owing to the remarkable achievements she has made in social sectors, particularly health sector with relatively lesser number of economic resources. Kerala's figures on life expectancy, male and female literacy, child mortality, crude death rate etc. are close to those of developed countries and Kerala's achievements in health, in spite of its economic backwardness has prompted many analysts to talk about a unique' Kerala Model of Health' providing 'good health at low cost' worth emulating by other developing parts of the world. However, over the last few years concerns were raised about the sustainability of Kerala model of health exemplified by the simultaneous presence of the diseases of poverty (infectious diseases) and diseases of affluence (life style diseases), decay in Public Health System, uncontrolled growth of private sector resulting in escalation of health care cost. Taking cue of these issues, the Government of Kerala has attempted to revamp the health sector through a plethora of intervention programmes to make healthcare in Kerala accessible, affordable and available to all sections of the population. The book on 'Revisiting the Kerala Model of Health' enquires upon the multiple facets of the Model, the challenges in terms of increasing morbidity and escalating expenditure, health status of the marginalized, interventions in terms of new initiatives at the governance and implementation levels, evaluation of attempts at providing food and nutrition security etc. The book will be of particular use to academicians, health workers and policy makers.