Prevalence of Chronic Diseases in Empowered Action Group (EAG) States and in Assam State of India

National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) was launched on April 12, 2005 for rural health care. The NRHM has as its goal improving the availability of and access to quality health care by people, especially poor women and children residing in rural areas. The States with the worst health problems had been listed initially as 18 beneficiary-States of the NRHM. Among the 18 are the Empowered Action Group (EAG) States, namely, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and three sister states : Uttaranchal, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand.  The EAG States are those with high fertility rates and weak socio-demographic indicators. The EAG was created in the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) especially to ensure population stabilization and intersect oral convergence.  It was seen that the EAG States had poor indicators on demographic stabilization at the time of launching the NRHM.  The ultimate objective of the EAG concept, then, is not overall health care but demographic stabilization. The understanding is that issues of reproductive health and child care have to be addressed not because they are rights but because they will lead to demographic stabilization.  Here below we intend to have some idea of status of Chronic Illnesses in this Group of States and also in the State of Assam.

A part of monitoring exercise of NRHM, Annual Health Surveys is being undertaken.   One Large Scale Annual Health Survey has been conducted in the year 2010-11 for eight EAG States besides the state of Assam, the major North-Eastern State of India.  Here below the prevalence of Chronic Diseases in the EAG States (Combined) and in the Assam North-East Major State have been given.  Using population provisional estimates are from Census 2011, the number of people diagnosed for any type of Chronic Illness in EAG states and Assam State has been estimated.

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Chronic Illness	Eight EAG States		Assam State
	Prevalence (%)	Estimated Persons in Millions	Prevalence (%)	Estimated Persons in Millions
Diabetes	0.32	1.80	0.54	0.17
Hypertension	0.60	3.31	1.74	0.54
Tuberculosis	0.27	1.49	0.29	0.09
Asthma/Chronic Respiratory	0.54	3.02	0.60	0.19
Arthritis	0.88	4.91	1.35	0.42
Others	3.63	20.12	5.45	1.70
Any	6.24	34.65	9.95	3.10

It can be seen that prevalence of Chronic Illness is much higher in Assam (around 10%) than in the EAG Group of States (around 6.25%).   Every one out of ten persons of Assam is suffering from one of the Chronic Illness.  There were over three million out of over 31 million persons suffering in 2011, whereas about 35 millions out of 555 millions were suffering in the eight EAG States of India. Arthritis and Hypertension disease are the main chronic diseases in all these states.  About half a million Assamese are Hypertensive and around four lakh persons are suffering from Arthritis.  Less than 0.2 millions are diabetic and/or having Asthma.  In the EAG States, the Hypertensive persons are about 3.3 millions and over 3 millions are with Asthma problem, but Arthritis suffering is by around five millions.  Diabetic problem is with about 1.8 millions.  About one and a half million persons are suffering from Tuberculosis.  Its prevalence is also higher in the State of Assam as is seen for other chronic illnesses.