Adieu 2017!

The recently released report, India: Health of the Nation’s States compiled laboriously by ICMR, PHFI, and IHME has valuable lessons for the MedTech industry.

Of the total disease burden in India, the communicable, maternal, neonatal, and nutritional diseases have dropped from 61 percent in 1990 to 33 percent in 2016. There was a corresponding increase in the contribution of noncommunicable diseases from 30 percent in 1990 to 55 percent in 2016, and of injuries from 9 percent to 12 percent. Kerala, Goa, and Tamil Nadu have the largest dominance of noncommunicable diseases and injuries, whereas this dominance is present but relatively the lowest in Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh, and Rajasthan.

The burden of most infectious and associated diseases reduced in India from 1990 to 2016, but five of the ten individual leading causes of disease burden in India in 2016 still belonged to diarrheal diseases, lower respiratory infections, iron-deficiency anemia, preterm birth complications, and tuberculosis. For India as whole, it was 2.5–3.5 times higher than the average globally for other geographies at a similar level of development. The major noncommunicable disease groups included cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, chronic respiratory diseases, mental health and neurological disorders, cancers, musculoskeletal disorders, and chronic kidney disease. The largest disease burden increase was observed for diabetes, at 80 percent, and ischemic heart disease, at 34 percent. The contribution of injuries to the total disease burden has increased in most states since 1990. Road injuries and self-harm, which includes suicides and nonfatal outcomes of self-harm, are the leading contributors to the injury burden in India.

These findings can be used not only for planning of state health budgets, prioritization of interventions relevant to each state, informing the government’s Health Assurance Mission, monitoring of health-related Sustainable Development Goals targets, assessing impact of large-scale interventions based on time trends of disease burden, and forecasting population health under various scenarios, but also provide intelligence to the investors on where to put their money in 2018.

We wish our readers a Very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!