Urban health: Do average masks reality?

Health issues in urban areas of developing countries, which are experiencing a rapid growth but are characterized with lack of infrastructure, have been subject to researches in recent times under the massive rate of urbanization and rural to urban migration. The main objective of this study is to examine the health inequality in urban India and the health status of urban poor as compared to rural average in India. We have used the data from National Family Health Survey-3. To show the inequalities we have calculated Kuznet’s Index, Dissimilarity Index and Human Opportunity Index (HOI) values. We have carried out bivariate and multi-variate analysis over the indicators like, home and institutional deliveries, assisted deliveries, immunization, undernourishment, breastfeeding, anaemia, birthweight and also child health. We have found that though the urban people seem to be much healthier as compared to rural, the inequality indices show that urban health is no better than the average health of rural people, as depicted by Kuznet’s index for complete immunization, institutional deliveries, breastfeeding or child health. The result urges policymakers to focus urgently on urban health especially among poor, besides their rural concern, since urban health being further aggravated with poor infrastructure and environmental condition.