Changes in longevity and health status in Kerala: Are they leading to the advanced stage?

During the last century, Kerala witnessed drastic mortality reduction and high improvement in longevity. This achievement is often compared with that of developed countries. However, how far the early advantages in mortality reduction have further enhanced the health status of the people in Kerala remains unknown. In most developed countries, advanced stage of mortality reduction and further increase in longevity was achieved mainly due to mortality shift from adult , older to oldest ages (Olshansky and Ault 1986). However, such exploration on advanced mortality changes are lacking in Kerala. Considering this gap our study focused on changes in longevity and health status in Kerala. We used the methodology given by Olshansky and Ault in 1986, by decomposing the changes in longevity among different age groups (gender and spatial), and causes of deaths. We also estimated Health Adjusted Life Expectancy to understand health status along with longevity in Kerala. We used data from sources like; Census, CRS, DHS and survey data from SRS, MCCD, CDS-R, and NSSO. The paper concludes that though healthcare policies in Kerala are sufficient to address the health issues of infants, children and mothers in reproductive ages, the state also should make necessary policy initiatives to address the health problems of adults especially the males