India

Abstract

Indias population of 900 million as of 1994 was growing annually by 1.99%. 75% of the population lives in rural areas of the country and 60% of the people depend upon agriculture for their livelihood. The country has made considerable progress since independence in 1947 increasing life expectancy and reducing the rates of infant mortality crude birth total fertility and morbidity from a number of communicable diseases. Even so almost half of the country was illiterate as of 1991 and major health problems remained such as communicable diseases environmental problems and chronic noncommunicable problems. The 1978 Alma Ata Declaration of Health for All is the basis for Indias national health policy. Interest and efforts persist to build health education as an integral component of all national health programs such as family welfare child survival safe motherhood and AIDS control in the attempt to enable people to gain control over their own health and the factors influencing it. The following strategies have been adopted to achieve these health promotion and education goals: mass media to provide authoritative information traditional media packages for the face-to-face transmission of selected and treated educational messages interpersonal change agents to work upon compulsive persuasion community involvement influencing health-related sectors to ensure that their policies and programs provide a supportive environment for health and supportive legislation where needed.