Magnitude of Urban Health Disparity in Uttar Pradesh: A District Level Analysis

Due to rapid urbanisation and urban growth in India, it becomes challenging for the Government to provide proper health and health facilities to the urban population. Ensuring proper health is the responsibility of the state government, Uttar Pradesh which has the largest population base but economically less developed finds a challenge to cater the health needs of urban population. A more recent challenge is the regional disparities probably caused by special privilege given to certain regions. This paper is an attempt to examine the degree of health inequalities across districts of urban Uttar Pradesh, based on recent data provided by Census (2011) and Annual Health Survey (2010). For estimating health inequalities, Principal Component Analysis is performed in which five indices have been constructed using 24 socio-economic and health indicators. These indices are: Socio-Economic Index, Acute Illness Index, Diagnosed Chronic Illness Index, Maternal and Child Health Index and finally a composite Health Index. The results of the paper clearly show that there are some pockets of better health level in urban Uttar Pradesh despite their geographical location. However, these pockets are quite visible in eastern and western region which are also the leading regions in economic development.