WP16 - Child health in the Sundarbans: How far mutually reinforcing shocks act as contextual determinants?

Childhood chronic undernutrition and common childhood illness is highly prevalent in the Sundarbans delta region of West Bengal, India. The present work tested the hypothesis- frequent climatic shock is likely to predispose chronic and transient health shocks through behavioural responses of households in the presence of inaccessibility, inadequacy and acceptability barriers which act in the economy as long wave shocks.

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WP15 - Nutritional Status of Children in India: Household Socio-Economic Condition as the Contextual Determinant

Despite recent achievement in economic progress in India, the fruit of development has failed to secure a better nutritional status among all children of the country. Growing evidence suggest there exists a socioeconomic gradient of childhood malnutrition in India. The present paper is an attempt to measure the extent of socio-economic inequality in chronic childhood malnutrition across major states of India and to realize the role of household socio-economic status (SES) as the contextual determinant of nutritional status of children.

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WP14 - Revisiting the Role of Geographical Accessibility in Women's Access to Healthcare

The objectives of this working papers are studying the differentials of health service availability and uptake of services particularly for women's health needs related to out-patient care and institutional childbirth. Understanding their various predictors, along with the issues related to geographical accessibility, in the context of the Sundarbans.

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WP13 - Engaging the private sector in maternal and neonatal health in low and middle income countries

We reviewed existing literature on private sector initiatives that have shown effectiveness in improving maternal and neonatal health. The private sector constitutes a significant proportion of delivery services for women in developing countries and it also plays a key role in family planning, abortion, nutrition, and antenatal care. We primarily address maternal health outcomes and include interventions that improve neonatal health outcomes where they are included in the study design or interventional strategy alongside maternal outcomes. We do not review evidence that addresses neonatal outcomes alone, as this would go beyond the scope of this paper.

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WP12: Who Are ‘Informal Health Providers’ and What Do They Do? Perspectives from Medical Anthropology

This paper explores gaps and limitations in the conceptualisation, methodology and policy implications of debates about informal health care providers by examining a cross section of empirical studies. Drawing on a tradition of critical medical anthropology, we argue that existing debates hinge on a particular understanding of what constitutes appropriate knowledge and on particular expectations of how economic actors in the medical marketplace will behave.

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