ABSTRACT
Increasing health complications are a major challenge to the overall health status of the population in India today. With communicable as well as chronic and lifestyle diseases occurring simultaneously, the challenge has become all the more serious. This chapter begins with the theoretical challenges to the growing concerns in public health, especially those that question the epidemiological health transition theory and the germ theory of disease. The stress on preventive and/or curative approaches to health is adding to the public health challenges. It is well established that the erosion of the very basis of our planet is a health challenge. The common impression is that health status and facilities are poorer in rural than in urban India. This does not hold when compared with the increasing poorer pockets in urban areas. The prohibitive cost of healthcare and the whopping out-of-pocket expenses in India are well known. What are the consequences of the erosion of indigenous healthcare along with the public-funded health insurance through the corporatization of private healthcare for public health? The chapter looks at the rising medico-technological business of birthing on the one hand and the lack of consideration of public healthcare in urban planning on the other to illustrate the disturbing scenario of poor healthcare for the urban poor.
