Family welfare planning programmes in Tamil Nadu: an appraisal of fertility trends.

PIP: Over the past few years advancements in family welfare programs have occurred in India. One state in the Indian Union, Tamil Nadu, has had significant success in its family planning strategies. Examined is the fertility trends over a period of years within this area. Focus is on fertility decline, calculated from changing birthrates. Decline was differentiated in terms of crude birth rates. Chosen were standardized birth rates adjusted for age (females 15-49 years old), and standardized birth rates adjusted for both age structure and marital status. Family planning programs in Tamil Nadu were classified according to periods of years - 1956-1971 as the pre-intensive program period, and 1971-1986 as the intensive program period. Methodology included simple correlation and regression with additional computations, and multilinear regression measuring impacts on fertility decline of a small number of various factors. Conclusions drawn showed a swift decline in fertility in Tamil Nadu from 1971-1988, more so than during the period of 1956-1971. Family welfare programs were examined as well as through 4 key variables: infant mortality rates, female employment, female educational attainment, and family planning utilization. All 4 variables have shown a positive influence on fertility decline in Tamil Nadu. Both crude and standardized birth rates, as shown by measuring births averted during 1986, can be effectively used in producing births averted in any particular future time period.^ieng

Health care provision and access opportunity in Madras city.

This short paper has reported on the health care provision and access opportunity in Madras city, India, using three city areas as sample areas. Maps have indicated that a general concentration of both GP and specialist practices, although access opportunities in the peripheries do not point up to paucity of services. The study is a report on private practices that is an important element in the health services provision.

PIP: Recent research in Madras, India was done to assess the state of private health care facilities. The 2 types of doctors considered are the generalists (GP) and the specialist. There are public hospitals in each of the 3 main areas of the city and the distribution of private clinics run by both generalists and specialists is widespread. Most of the private practitioners work in the public institutions as well as their private practices. In Royapettah and K.K. Nager, the GPs practice the most hours, but in Anna Nager the gynecologists and child specialists practice the most hours. In all areas the specialists put in more hours, weekly, than the GP. Most of the practices are run on an appointment basis during normal working hours. The consulting periods for GP's are 5-10 minutes and specialist average from 15-45 minutes for each patient. The geographical locations of the GP's are clustered in Royapettah and dispersed in Anna Nagar and K.K. Nagar. The specialists are centralized in Anna Nager and dispersed in K.K. Nagar and Royapettah. The centralization of the private health services provided access that diminishes at the peripheries of the city area. There are facilities on the peripheral areas of Anna Nager and K.K. Nager and these practices have a wider service than the inner city areas.

Health services and administration in Madras City: problems and professional perceptions.

The paper discusses in four parts material related to health services and administration in Madras City. A historical account on the health services establishment and administration is first presented. This is followed by the structural and organizational characteristics of the present health service system. A brief analysis of health services in Madras City and the problems they face in their day-to-day operations is then presented. And finally the discussion turns to professional perceptions on the administrative problems and their redress where we see different views of people handling at present the several departments in public hospitals of the city. The perceptions are such that they leave us enormously concerned with the state of affairs in public health services delivery system.

Infectious hepatitis in urban India.

The paper is about infectious hepatitis in urban India. The discussion is on two case studies: one of Madras, and the other of Madurai: two major cities in the State of Tamilnadu, South India. The Madras study is on the temporal and spatial analysis of the distribution and diffusion of hepatitis during 1971-1978. The Madras study also relates age to incidence, the major conclusion being that children are more susceptible to hepatitis than elders. The diffusion of hepatitis is said to occur in a wave - like form, covering newer areas and intensifying in time in core areas. The Madurai study is about the epidemic of hepatitis during January-October of 1981. Relating incidence with share of slum population, and number of borewells in city localities, the study yields a positive relation between them with a correlation coefficient value of .7424 and .7812, respectively. General lack of environmental quality and use of contaminated water for domestic purposes appear to be causes of high incidence of infectious hepatitis.

Brainstorming: an application for programme planning in family welfare planning.

There have been many participatory devices developed and applied for programme planning in a variety of fields by the social scientists in the recent past, of which brainstorming is one. This device has been widely used in interpretive structural modelling to higher education programme planning, programme planning for housing in urban development, etc. Following these studies, application of brainstorming to develop a preliminary operational value system as a structural model for programme planning in Family planning was attempted. The products of a sequence of three sessions of approximately 5 hours each generated 39 needs, 28 alterables, and 22 constraints, all of which were used to set Family Planning objectives /34/. The objectives thus derived were used in building an intent structure to understand their priorities in plan formulation and eventual implementation.