title: Epidemiological profile of India: historical and contemporary perspectives.
abstract: Knowledge and understanding of the epidemiological profile is an essential pre-requisite to assess and address public health needs in the country and to enable efficient programme planning and management. The need for adequate and accurate health information and data to undertake such an exercise cannot be over-emphasized. The present effort is a modest attempt to critically analyse the epidemiological profile of India from the historical and contemporary perspective. In order to assess the successes achieved as well caution against the daunting challenges awaiting the country, parameters such as disease burden and health status indicators, are increasingly being used. Changes in the population age structure, improvements in the nation's economic status, altered life-styles of people and duality of disease burden testify to the demographic, development and health transition occurring in the country. Population stabilization, poverty alleviation, life-style modification, surveillance and control of communicable and non-communicable diseases constitute the major challenges demanding urgent attention in the future.
authors.affiliation: National Institute of Epidemiology, Chetput, Chennai 600 031, India. nieicmr@vsnl.com
authors.forename: M D
authors.initials: MD
authors.lastname: Gupte
authors.forename: V
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Ramachandran
authors.forename: R K
authors.initials: RK
authors.lastname: Mutatkar
mesh_terms: D001723:Birth Rate; D003141:Communicable Diseases / Q000191:economics / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000266:history; D003153:Community Health Services; D017281:Cost of Illness; D003710:Demography; D006305:Health Status Indicators; D006280:Health Workforce / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D049672:History, 19th Century; D049673:History, 20th Century; D006801:Humans; D007194:India / Q000453:epidemiology; D008428:Maternal Mortality / Q000639:trends; D009752:Nutritional Status; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors