Most important health status indicator of a country
Ans. d (Infant mortality rate) (Ref. Park PSM 22nd/pg. 23, 525)Infant Mortality Rate# The probability of dying in the period from birth to the first birthday.# In reality, newborns are not prospectively observed for deaths occurring up to 1 year of age. Instead, the probability of dying is calculated on the basis of the number of reported infant deaths during a calendar year divided by the estimated number of live births occurring in the same year.# Although it is actually a ratio, the IMR is presented as a "rate" per 1000 live births.LIFE EXPECTANCY AT BERTH# The number of years a newborn infant would live if prevailing patterns of age-specific mortality rates at the time of birth were to stay the same throughout the child's life.# Life expectancy at birth reflects the overall mortality level of a population.# It summarizes the mortality pattern that prevails across all age groups - children and adolescents, adults and the elderly.TOTAL FERTILITY RATE# Number of births that a woman can expect to have during her childbearing years (15-49 years), given current age- specific fertility rates in her population or country.# The TFR is therefore the sum of all age-specific fertility rates at one point in time.HEALTHY LIFE EXPECTANCY AT BIRTH# Average number of years that a person can expect to live in "full health" by taking into account years lived in less than full health due to disease and/or injury.# Substantial resources are devoted to reducing the incidence, duration and severity of major diseases that cause morbidity but not mortality and to reducing their impact on people's lives.# It is important to capture both fatal and non-fatal health outcomes in a summary measure of average levels of population health.# Healthy life expectancy (HALE) at birth adds up expectation of life for different health states, adjusted for severity distribution making it sensitive to changes over time or differences between countries in the severity distribution of health states.Under-five Mortality Rate# Probability that a newborn child will die before reaching his or her fifth birthday (the sum of probabilities of dying in the first, second, third, fourth and fifth years of life).# This cumulative probability is expressed per 1000 live births.# It is meant to estimate the likelihood at the time of birth that a child will not survive to his or her fifth birthday.# Under-5 mortality rate is a leading indicator of the level of child health and overall development in countries.# It is also an MDG indicator.Maternal Mortality Ratio# Maternal death is defined as the death of a woman as a result of pregnancy or childbirth, during pregnancy or within 42 days after delivery.# Classification of a death as a maternal death is highly dependent on a recorded diagnosis or the conduct of a verbal autopsy to ascertain the cause of death.# In practice, the MMR is often an estimate based solely upon the time of death, i.e., death while pregnant or within 42 days after delivery.# The MMR is expressed as the number of maternal deaths per 100, 000 live births over a specified period. This is a measure of the risk of death once a woman has become pregnant.# The Tenth Revision of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-10) defines a maternal death as the death of a woman while pregnant or within 42 days of termination of pregnancy, irrespective of the duration and site of the pregnancy, from any cause related to or aggravated by the pregnancy or its management but not from accidental or incidental causes.# Most common cause of maternal mortality in India is PPH.
Life expectancy at birth
Maternal mortality rate
Total fertility rate
Infant mortality rate
Concept of Health and Disease