Women's Health Status in Rural Odisha: Insights from SC and ST Communities

While India's economic growth has gained momentum in the last decade, Indian health system is facing multiple challenges in terms of universal coverage of health care services along with providing quality care to large sections of people. Large inequities in access to health services continue to persist and have even widened across states, between rural and urban areas, and within communities. But most surprisingly, the state of Odisha has been lagging behind other states in achieving the goal of "health for all." and the health status is even worse as far as Schedule Caste and Schedule Tribe are concerned. Although, health sector is experiencing an overall growth yet it is very miserable in Mayurbhanj district of Odisha. Tribal women are facing unutterable misery due to patriarchy, low literacy, lack of awareness on health issues, firm belief in the super natural powers, etc. This study is going to highlight on morbidity patterns and utilization of curative health care services among rural SC's & ST's women in Mayurbhanj District. This study also focuses on factors responsible for poor health status of Women in Mayurbhanj District of Odisha. Tribal women are more vulnerable as compared SC women in the study area and their health status is brutally poor with mass undernourishment, malnutrition, maternal mortality, infant mortality, reproductive health issues. We hope this study will be of immense help to research communities, students and academicians working in the area of Health and Development issues and further it also helps the planners and policy makers to look at the problem in accessing the health care services at grass root level.