{"id":218256,"date":"2022-12-13T20:38:12","date_gmt":"2022-12-13T15:08:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=218256"},"modified":"2022-12-13T20:38:12","modified_gmt":"2022-12-13T15:08:12","slug":"curbing-individualism-in-public-health","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/curbing-individualism-in-public-health\/","title":{"rendered":"Curbing individualism in public health"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Source<\/strong>– The post is based on the article \u201cCurbing individualism in public health\u201d <\/strong>published in The Hindu <\/strong>on 13th December 2022<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Syllabus: <\/strong>GS2- Issues related to development and management of health<\/p>\n

Relevance:<\/strong> Public Healthcare System<\/p>\n

News- <\/strong>The article explains the need to prioritise society oriented population-based approaches over individual-oriented interventions for public health.<\/p>\n

What is the recent example related to it?<\/strong><\/h5>\n

The Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (PMJAY)<\/strong> under Ayushman Bharat is the largest health insurance scheme in the country. It covers hospitalisation expenses for a family for \u20b95 lakh a year. The entire scheme doesn’t talk about the need for hospitalisation services per year for any population.<\/p>\n

Instead, every individual is given an assurance that if there is a need for hospitalisation expenses and the scheme will cover the expenses.<\/p>\n

What are the facts associated with it?<\/strong><\/h5>\n

Data from the National Sample Survey Organisation (75th round)<\/strong> show that on an average, only 3% of the total population<\/strong> in India had an episode of hospitalisation in a year.<\/p>\n

The assurance of a service remains an unfulfilled promise when more than 90% <\/strong>of those who were given the promise do not need hospitalisation in the near future.<\/p>\n

In case of COVID-19, It was also evident that around 20% of the total COVID-19 positive cases needed medical attention, with around 5% needing hospitalisation and around 1%-2% needing intensive care (ICU) or ventilator support.<\/p>\n

Most of the deaths due to COVID-19 are a reflection of the failure to offer ventilator and ICU support services to the 1%-2% in desperate need of it. The morbidity profile of a population <\/strong>across age groups is an important criterion used to plan the curative care needs of a population.<\/p>\n

What it means is that for population-level planning, the need of the population as a single unit <\/strong>needs to be considered.<\/p>\n

What are the reasons for the dominance of individualism in public health?<\/strong><\/h5>\n

The first is the dominance of biomedical knowledge and philosophy<\/strong> in the field of public health. It leads to the misconception that what is done at an individual level, when done at a population level, becomes public health.<\/p>\n

The visibility <\/strong>of health impacts among the general public is a big reason. Health effects are more visible and appear convincing at the individual level.<\/p>\n

the market\u2019s role and the effect of consumerism <\/strong>in public health influence the choices of people. The beneficiaries for a programme become the maximum when 100% of the population is targeted.<\/p>\n

What is the way forward?<\/strong><\/p>\n

All forms of individualistic approaches<\/strong> in public health need to be resisted to safeguard its original principles of practice, population, prevention, and social justice.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Source– The post is based on the article \u201cCurbing individualism in public health\u201d published in The Hindu on 13th December 2022. Syllabus: GS2- Issues related to development and management of health Relevance: Public Healthcare System News- The article explains the need to prioritise society oriented population-based approaches over individual-oriented interventions for public health. What is… Continue reading Curbing individualism in public health<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10320,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1230,9],"tags":[212,10498],"class_list":["post-218256","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-9-pm-daily-articles","category-public","tag-gs-paper-2","tag-the-hindu","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":{"total":0,"cached_at":"","cached_date":1704848584},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218256","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10320"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=218256"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218256\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=218256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=218256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=218256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}