Health Economics

I read an interesting point today. Surprisingly it is from one of my study book. (How often can someone find something ‘interesting’ in a study book?) I am taking Health economics this semester. The basic concept of the course is to consider health as a capital. I was astounded to consider health as a capital. I mean all this time I used to consider capital as either money or infrastructure that give direct profit. But then even health gives you pleasure and good health. Thus, health is the capital which you spend in order to get happiness. Sounds so crazy!

When one person eats healthy food and exercises every day then that person is investing in health capital. The more you invest, more are the returns in terms of good health, and there by better productivity and happy life. Drinking alcohol, smoking and eating McDonald food reduces your health capital as you are more prone to diseases and you loose productivity. By this concept, now, even human health can be converted in dollars. One example – productivity loss due to cold is worth $6 billion in US per year.

Another fascinating fact I read in the book is that, when economy of a particular country booms the overall health of the society of that particular spirals down. As unemployment is high, lot of people have spare time to look after themselves. In general people eat on time and sleep regularly. And most importantly the stress level is low. So people are healthier. The situation is exactly opposite when economy is booming. People eat unhealthy food as they do not have time. The sleep less and are more anxious and under stress.

No wonder that the overall health of Indian health post 1990 boom is drastically deteriorating. Gobble few facts for taste.

1) While city-dwellers account for only 5 percent of India's billion-plus population, they consume 40 percent of the country's fat intake, according to The Times of India.

2) Nationwide, 31 percent of urban Indians are either overweight or obese, according to professor Anoop Misra, a specialist in metabolic diseases at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, the country's leading medical school.

3) Recent studies using the criterion of 140/90 mmHg as the cut-off point for hypertension have shown a prevalence of 10%– 30.9% in urban areas, while earlier reports since 1950 showed a prevalence of 1%–3%.