Managing the Health of New Born: A Study of Child Health and Immunization among Slum Dwellers of Mumbai

Abstract

Increasing the urbanization in developing countries has resulted in a faster growth of slum population. This has led to varying degrees of health burden on the slum children. The conditions of child health in slums with inadequate health facilities are worse in comparison to relatively better served slums. The present study is based on data collected by National Family Health Survey –II (1998-99) conducted in all 26 states of India. The analysis indicates that the distribution of polio vaccine is relatively high among first birth order children in Mumbai slum, urban Maharashtra and rural Maharashtra. The unit of analysis for this study is child. Accordingly the data has been tabulated and analyzed for rural-urban areas of Maharashtra and Mumbai slum.  It is found that in view of the differential vulnerabilities across slums, an urban child health program should build contextually appropriate and community needs responsive approaches to improve children's health in the slums.It is found that in order to manage the child immunization in Mumbai Slum, it is important to improve the standard of living of the families, impart them a favorable population education, coupled with the value of education in the long term health impact and health effects of immunization with its economic impact on families.