What person, group or organization is being profiled, and why are they of interest to this project?
The National Health Mission
This group is important as it is run by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare through the Government of India
What have they done – through research, or a public health program or education forum, for example-- that illustrates how they have worked to improve air pollution governance and environmental public health?
The NHM is the head of the public effort to improve the healthcare system in India. Some of the Projects they have been associated with are the National Urban Health Mission, the National Rural Health Mission, and the Pulse Polio Programme
What timeline of events illustrates how this way of addressing environmental public health has developed?
For decades, the government of India has been scrutinized for its lack of GDP funding for its public health sector. It was not until the 2014 election for government officials that public health care became the focus of the campaign. With the win of the party a new Minister of Healthcare was picked who pledged to specifically make healthcare available to all of its citizens.
Does this person, group or organization claim to have a new or unique way of addressing environmental public health? Does this approach point to or suggest problems with other approaches?
The government has been involved with the development of public health issues since the resurrection of its country. Plans to tackle the rural health issue started around 2005 and area of fixing polio eradiction started as early as 1998. Though there have been different people in government with different ideas the overall message has been the same- to help its people. It was consistent however that the aid for these programs was always minute. India contributes one of the worlds lowest GDP percentages to its health care system, so regardless of the efforts and programs they make they will still sit with the problem of having a weak public healthcare system. This error has led to the continual growth of private health care sectors within India. This in turn has aided those who are well off and hurt those who are too poor to afford private healthcare.
What data have they collected or used to support their approach to environmental public health? What visualizations of this data have been created?
In terms of the rural health mission the NHM has shrived to make its people more aware of the health at the village level. Aiming to teach people in these areas about proper sanitation methods and proper nutritional facts, the project aims to help those in the rural regions on living a more healthy lifestyle due to their lack of educational exposure. In terms of the urban health mission, the goal is to care for the needs of the population by focusing on the urban poor. They want to make available to these people essential primary health care services and reduce their out of pocket spending. The goal of the project is to partner with NGOs to help supply this mission.
What research has the organization produce or drawon on in their initiatives – in the last year, and over the last decade?
One of the biggest accomplishments of the region was the eradication of polio in 2011. Approved by the WHO in 2012, this marked the success of the 17 year plan instalement of the Nation Immunization Day.
The Fertility Rate has declined from 3.2 in 2000 to 2.4 in 2012
Indias population is 1.21 billion and it witnessed the steepest decline in growth rate where it went from 21.54% in 1990-2000 to 17.64% in 2001-2011.
Bringing awareness and new programs to help stabilize reproduction and healthcare has helped make these figures possible.
What kinds of technology and infrastructure do they rely on in the production of environmental health care?
The rural regions of India are not so much polluting the regions as much as the cities. The rural areas are instead very isolated from treatments. As a result these regions call to action a mobile hospital system, where doctors and their team must go in vans to these isolated locations to treat the patients as a part of the NRHM.
What social ecology does this person, group or organization work within, and how did it shaped their way of conceiving and engaging asthma?
The NHM focuses more broadley on all areas of the health care system in India. It was important to review in order to best understand the development of the urban and rural public health care system. Though it does not focus on asthma it is important to potentially mark trends to help predict other operations of government organizations. In addition, in knowing more about the governmental impact on healthcare can help guide the focus of future research when it comes to limitations and restrictions in terms of environmental concerns and asthma related cases.
What events or data seem to have motivated their ways of thinking about and engaging environmental health?
The NHM shows from its data that its partial aim is to decrease the population rate increase. It is shown that a high percentage of India's population reside in the cities and have lead to overcrowding. Places such as slum villages have risen up all over various cities, thus for environmental and health related concerns the population rate has been urged to decrease.
What funding enables their work and possibly shapes their way of thinking about environmental health?
The funding overall for the ministry of healtchare has always been low thus resulting in the little effect of the public health industry.
What in the history of this person, group or organization likely shaped the way they conceived or and engage environmental health?
Being run under the government, India's Ministry of Health Care was a project that had to be funded and started once given its independece in the late 1940's. It is a government run operation thus it is made to enhance the lives of its people for the better.
What does this person, group or organization seem to find methodologically challenging or concerning in dealing with environmental health?
The issue of the organization is that it has a very high population of people who have limited access to healthcare or who are too poor to pay for it. They must provide or subsidize a high order of peoples healthcare. The organizaton is unwilling, or can not, put money into the organzition. The ministry is aiming to help the health of its people first and foremost but the truth of the matter is that in helping its people can directly impact the environmental concerns of the nation. In focusing on sanitation for healthcare and cleaning up broken infrastructure for public facilities can have a direct impact on the environmental output in the cities.
What kinds of governance are (implicitly or explicitly) called for in the way they think about environmental health?
The city of Delhi, or the capital of India, was just named the most polluted capital in the world over Beijing. It is clear that little to no efforts are being made to improve the environmental impact made on the world.
How can The Asthma Files enable or supplement this way of thinking about environmental health, and the work of this person, group or organization?
The Asthma Files can take this organization and use it as an offshoot point. Now understanding the governmental side of the problems with the healthcare systems in India, one is able to relate that information to understanding particular NGO and GO group missions and actions, in addition there is now more of a background on what is needed to be improved and left alone when it comes to fixing the healthcare and industry in India.
What person, group or organization is being profiled, and why are they of interest to this project?
The group being investigated is the India-California Mitigation Pollution Program(ICAMP). The organization was started by the UC San Diego, The Energy and Resource Institute(TERI) of India, California Air Resource Board(CARB), and the World Bank. The program was formed October 2013. This program is important becuase it is bringing together two nations from a serious cause. California was declared one of the most polluted cities in teh US back in the 1960s and due to excessive laws and regulations they were able to cut their pollution output numbers down by 90%. Today, India reflects many of the characteristics and statistics as California produced back in the 1960s. With global warming on the rise the goal is to tailor a plan from California's history of environmental protection and apply it to India.
What have they done – through research, or a public health program or education forum, for example-- that illustrates how they have worked to improve air pollution governance and environmental public health?
The program established working groups on science, technology and governance that would take place over six months. The program is designed to reduce India's air pollution that will be presented to a high level policy committee. The goal is to make up projects to reduce diesel emissions in cities . The meeting for the presentation was scheduled for February 2014 in New Delhi.
What timeline of events illustrates how this way of addressing environmental public health has developed?
The problem of rising emissions in India have been ongoing for years. Developing decades after its partnering Califonria, India is able to take its problem and use the pre-exisitng Calfionraia plans as a template. It has been discovered that India's pollution is so bad that it has reached PM10 levels at 1560 mg/m^3, which is 30 times larger than the WHO standard for a city. PM are pollutant materials that cause health risks and increase the risks of global warming. The fall of California's pollution production from the 1960s to 2010 negatively correlated with the rise of India. India has grown in pollution so much that between the years of 1991 and 2011 transportation vehicles escalated from 20 million to 140 million.
Does this person, group or organization claim to have a new or unique way of addressing environmental public health? Does this approach point to or suggest problems with other approaches?
This project aims to take an existing solution to air pollution and apply it to a similar issue. India,especially in Bangalore, is where Califonria pollution productions was 50 years ago. The plans implemented in Califonria worked thus these plans are going to be recycled and refurbished through the work of various committees to bring similar effects to the pollution output in India.
What data have they collected or used to support their approach to environmental public health? What visualizations of this data have been created?
It has been worked out to find that if implemented, India's cut on gas emission can be reduced by up to 85% by 2030. If done correctly it is believed that it will reduce premature deaths to 230,000 by 2030.
What research has the organization produce or drawon on in their initiatives – in the last year, and over the last decade?
Came out with plan and full text description of the meetings held over 6 months but it is not clear whether or not these plans were accepted/implemented by the India Government. It called for action in the areas of reducing diesel emissions on every car in India.
What kinds of technology and infrastructure do they rely on in the production of environmental health care?
There is no record found yet on implementation of the project in real time. Records not found if was put into action
What social ecology does this person, group or organization work within, and how did it shaped their way of conceiving and engaging asthma?
The group at hand was formed based on a coalition between Calfiornia research institutions and energy resource institutions in India. The goal of the two groups was to improve the air pollution output in India in order to both help decrease diesel emission for global warming mitigation and to prevent premature deaths from PMs.
What events or data seem to have motivated their ways of thinking about and engaging environmental health?
The data that has driven the research and group is mostly medically related. It has been shown that PM(particular matter) causes up to 627,000 deaths each year in India due to the diesel emisions harmful effects. In turn this produces a strongly econcomical impact as it estimates at a cost of $18 Billion in loses from mortality and morbity and agricultural production.
What funding enables their work and possibly shapes their way of thinking about environmental health?
Not explicitly said potentially The World Bank, as it co-hosted the event. The organization initial meeting was put together by the diretor of TERI and the chair of the Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change. In addition there were government officials across both isles who attended this inital meeting. The workshop was aranged by UCSD in partnership with TERI.
What in the history of this person, group or organization likely shaped the way they conceived or and engage environmental health?
All the orgnaizaitons that participapted in the initial workshops and who agreed to go further research new methods to decrease the pollution all were apart of seperate organziaitons, governmental or nongovernmental, that focused on environmental impact from PM output. Everyone was concerned about the production of India's wellbeing either it be of its people in a health, economical, or climate changing manner.
What does this person, group or organization seem to find methodologically challenging or concerning in dealing with environmental health?
They see that the diesel output of India to be on the rise and in great ways similar to the path Califonra had been taking at one point. Seeing the overall effects on the environment and its people, India wants to reduce these emissions to save both problems.
What kinds of governance are (implicitly or explicitly) called for in the way they think about environmental health?
The governance that will be implicitly used in this project involves the work between Califonia teams and the environmentalist of India. They will propose the projects to the government of India and will want to spend the time following the workshop to ensure that the methods used in the new proposals are fititting to the governmental policies in India.
How can The Asthma Files enable or supplement this way of thinking about environmental health, and the work of this person, group or organization
This is a great organization to follow in terms of the Asthma files. It will bring together economical, social, environmental, and public health issues on the production of India pollutant output. Once studied further it may be possible that various education and revolutionary methods were ordered through the government to implement these new ideas to reduce emissons. The subject must be further studied; however, it greatly points to a shift in environmetnal thinking of India as it has been seen in a negative light thus far.
Notes: Extended Files
I believe that many of the cities, in particular Bangelaru, are more affluent and are able to afford private health care. While researching Doctors Without Borders group, MSF USA, I found that very little help was provided in the southern portion of India where Bangalore resides. This may point to that there is more established communities in that region, people are more well off, or that it is generally more built up outisde of the city. Either way I will be looking further into this to help guide me in understnading the residents of Bangelaru.
Citation: http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/country-region/india
Another Note: I am going to be looking further into the fertility and treatment of females in India. I saw throuhg the NHM page that there is an entire document dedicated to family planning and birth rates. India has recently fell in population rate increase for the first time in decades. I have a feeling tha the government must have something to do with this rate decrease. In addition, this makes me wonder why they are aiming to bring down the population? Is it just for population density purposes? There are many rural regions of India so it is possibel that there are further medical and social regions for this potential shift in population rates.
this article confirms there is a population control program. In addition, India is causing great harm and mortality to its female populition. http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2014/11/11/363261393/sterilization-operations-in-india-reportedly-kill-9-women
Another Note:
In the following document there is an extended amonut of information I am gong to further looking into. One of the major issues I found was prenatal sex determinatants that wound up in abortions. Due to the out of ratio numbers between sexes, the government instilled methods to aleviate the flux between male to female births. http://nrhm.gov.in/images/pdf/media/publication/Annual_Report-Mohfw.pdf
http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2013/11/18/india-california-air-climate-pollution
Notes: Extended Files
I believe that many of the cities, in particular Bangelaru, are more affluent and are able to afford private health care. While researching Doctors Without Borders group, MSF USA, I found that very little help was provided in the southern portion of India where Bangalore resides. This may point to that there is more established communities in that region, people are more well off, or that it is generally more built up outisde of the city. Either way I will be looking further into this to help guide me in understnading the residents of Bangelaru.
Citation:
http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/country-region/india
Another Note: I am going to be looking further into the fertility and treatment of females in India. I saw throuhg the NHM page that there is an entire document dedicated to family planning and birth rates. India has recently fell in population rate increase for the first time in decades. I have a feeling tha the government must have something to do with this rate decrease. In addition, this makes me wonder why they are aiming to bring down the population? Is it just for population density purposes? There are many rural regions of India so it is possibel that there are further medical and social regions for this potential shift in population rates.
this article confirms there is a population control program. In addition, India is causing great harm and mortality to its female populition.
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2014/11/11/363261393/sterilization-operations-in-india-reportedly-kill-9-women
Another Note:
In the following document there is an extended amonut of information I am gong to further looking into. One of the major issues I found was prenatal sex determinatants that wound up in abortions. Due to the out of ratio numbers between sexes, the government instilled methods to aleviate the flux between male to female births.
http://nrhm.gov.in/images/pdf/media/publication/Annual_Report-Mohfw.pdf