An Overview of the State of Health in Pakistan
March 21, 2013
The Millennium Development Goals provided countries with well-rounded objectives for achieving human development over a period of twenty-five years. Pakistan is not on track to achieve health-related goals. With the eighth highest newborn death rate in the world, between 2001 to 2007 one in every ten children born in Pakistan died before reaching the age of five. Similarly for women, there is a one in eighty chance of dying of maternal causes during reproductive life. Compared to other South Asian countries, Pakistan currently lags behind in immunization coverage, contraceptive usage and infant and child mortality rates.
Uzma Afzal
The share of out-of-pocket expenditures of total health expenditures in Pakistan was one highest in the world in 1998, and the situation has not changed much since then. Pakistan is going through an epidemiological transition of a double burden of communicable diseases combined with maternal and perinatal conditions, as well as chronic, noninfectious diseases. The landscape of public health service delivery presents an uneven distribution of resources between rural and urban areas. The rural poor are at a clear disadvantage in terms of primary as well as tertiary health services. Moreover, they also fail to benefit fully from public programs such as immunization of children. There has been a massive increase in the role of the private sector in the provision of service delivery. The poor state of public facilities is a contributing factor to the diminished role of public health facilities. After the 18th Amendment of the Constitution, health as a sector has been devolved to the provinces, yet the distribution of responsibilities and sources of revenue generation between the tiers remains unclear. There is a need for a multipronged national health policy that tackles the abysmal child and maternal health indicators, along with reducing the burden of disease. Moreover, it is imperative to improve the provision of primary as well as tertiary health care with a strong system for monitoring in place, along with the provision of social safety nets for the vulnerable.
About the presenter:
Uzma Afzal a Research Fellow at the Center for Research in Economics and Business (CREB). She is also a Senior Teaching Fellow at the Department of Economics, Lahore School of Economics. Her areas of interest are health economics, human development and political economy. She has published papers on poverty, human capital convergence and child health. Currently she is working on a project, “Learning about Flood Risk: Evidence from a Field Experiment in Pakistan”. The project is collaboration between the Lahore School of Economics and the University of Oxford, under the British Academy Award.
Uzma has a degree in MPhil (Economics) from the Lahore School of Economics, and she holds a BSc (Hons) in Economics from the Lahore University of Management and Sciences (LUMS).
Labels: Management of Pakistan Economy
posted by S A J Shirazi @ 3/21/2013 02:36:00 PM,
City Campus
104 - C, Gulberg III,
Lahore, Pakistan.
Phones: 92-42-35714936, 38474385
Fax: 92-42-36560905
Main Campus
Intersection Main Boulevard Phase VI
Burki Road
Lahore, Pakistan.
Phones: 36560935, 36560939
