Healthy India! Let’s Make It!

How HEALTHY Is India’s Population?

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During the ongoing pandemic, we keep reading about number of cases, mortality and how healthy our immunity system needs to be.

HEALTH, becomes a very important topic to discuss as just surviving the pandemic won’t help. Introspecting about our health, which we have been taking for granted needs urgent and immediate attention.

Good Health will not only be helpful for us as an individual, but collectively, it will have a direct impact on nation's health too. 

There is a basic parameter to understand the health and well-being of a population in all, 'Life Expectancy.'

Life expectancy is the key metric for assessing population health. It tells us the average age of death in population. 

India’s life expectancy is 69.16 years compared to average Global life expectancy of 71.5 years.

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The average life expectancy has always grown over the years, be it in India or globally, because of the ongrowing research in medical science. Not only this, but also because of some practices that population in majority are doing right.

Put it simply, a long life is possible only if we are Healthy. Life expectancy increases if the Healthy Life Expectancy is good. 

What is Healthy Life Expectancy(HALE)?

An average age of population that remains healthy is called HALE. India’s HALE age is 59.3 years.

Is it good? Is it bad?

Some would think it is good to be healthy till 59.3 years. Some would feel exactly the opposite, healthy life only till 59.3 years?

Comparison

Let us see where India stands compared to other countries. Selected a few countries to compare HALE against India. This is a data of 2016 by WHO

Country	HALE age
Australia	73 years
Canada	73.2 years
France	73.4 years
Germany	71.6 years
India	59.3 years
Japan	74.8 years
Norway	73 years
New Zealand	72.8 years
Spain	73.8 years
U.K	71.9 years
U.S.A	68.5 years

We can clearly see, many countries are not just better than India, but their HALE is higher than India's average life expectancy. 

Meaning, in simple words an average age of population from healthier countries is more than the average death age of India’s population. 

Still simpler, The age at which Indian's die is an age, where people from other countries are still living healthy life.

Amongst the healthiest countries data, Let’s see where does India rank?

Top 10 healthiest countries are

1. Spain
2. Italy
3. Iceland
4. Japan
5. Switzerland
6. Sweden
7. Australia
8. Singapore
9. Norway
10. Israel

Canada ranks 16th, New Zealand 18th, U.K, Germany and U.S.A 19th, 23rd and 35th respectively.

India, is not in top 50....Forget top 50, not even in top 75. Infact we don’t even rank among top 100 countries.

Shocking..! Missing a heart beat, as we realise how healthy and ahead other countries are.

119 countries in the world are healthier countries compared to India. Yes, India ranks as low as 120th amongst the healthiest countries. 

That too, India slipped from 119 in 2017 to 120 in 2019. Not good if this pattern continues. 

Certainly, we would be curious to know how many countries in all were considered? So, let me tell you, more precisely, amongst the healthiest countries, India ranks 120 out of 169 countries.  

No, it’s not just about the lesser population other countries have compared to India. We can’t keep giving same reasons to every problem and ignore. 

What are we as a population doing for a healthy living? 

We as in Government and we as individual, both. 

But, let us first see how much expenses have government incurred for population’s health. 

We have some eye opening numbers from a data of 2017, to look at expenditure on total health as % of GDP.

Country	% of GDP on  Health Expenditure
Australia	9.21%
Canada	10.57%
France	11.31%
Germany	11.25%
India	3.53%
Japan	10.94%
Norway	10.45%
New Zealand	9.17%
U.K	9.63%
U.S.A	17.06%

Yes, only 3.53% of India’s GDP is the total expenditure on health. Compare it with other countries it does not look impressive at all. 

Direct connection between HALE and Life Expectancy 

Countries with higher HALE have higher life expectancy. The world ranking of the life expectancy of countries:

Rank	Country	Lige Expectancy Age
1	Hong Kong	84.7 years
2	Japan	84.5 years
3	Switzerland	83.6 years
4	Singapore	83.7 years
5	Italy	83.4 years
5	Spain	83.4 years
7	Australia	83.3 years
8	Iceland	82.9 years

But,where does India stand here with an average life expectancy of 69.16 years? Way too less than top countries and way behind, India ranks 128th.

Reading these statistics and also understanding the government’s interest in expenditure on health, we need to realise one thing very strongly, that it is us and only US who will have to look after ourselves.

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What can we do to improve?

We would look at the country names and feel they are developed and rich countries. They can afford to spend more. So, it is possible there but not in India.

No, No, long lives is not just about rich countries and their affordability, but it is more about their diet and lifestyle too.

For example, Japan. HALE - 74.8 years, Life expectancy - 84.5 years And ranking 4th amongst the healthiest countries. What makes this Asian country so healthy?

• Healthy Diet
• Regular physical activity
• Extended work years
• Aggressive government intervention.

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Let us take another example of Top ranked healthiest country, SPAIN. HALE - 78.3 years, Life expectancy - 83.4 years, expected to rise by 85.8 years by 2040. 

Wondering, isn't it? How inspite of drinking culture of Spain, this is possible? Possible because of the habits and lifetyle of the population.

• Healthy Diet (Mediterranean and lots of fruits and vegetables)
• Healthy lifestyle (walk almost everywhere they can)

Spain has the highest percentage of walkers in Europe. 37% people in Spain go walking to work instead of driving.

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Healthy country, Happy country

Good health is a mix of physical, mental and social well-being and not just being disease free.

When the health is good it reflects on the happiness. So, a healthy population will indirectly reflect the happy population with right diet and lifestyle.

India ranks 140, amongst the happiest countries in the world. 

Good health is the key to ageing well

Who would love to age and grow old, bedridden? Feeling weak and demented, depending on someone. Remaining in good health is vital if we are to live well in our old age.

The elderly themselves are not the only ones who benefit from staying as healthy as possible - society overall benefits too because ultimately increasing life expectancy shouldn’t put too much of a burden on the health care system.

Healthy Population, an Asset

Like we discussed earlier, good diet and lifestyle, if practiced continuously and consistently it will lead us living a healthy life and when a larger population will take their own health seriously, it will reflect and help us improve our healthy population. 

A healthy population is an asset of the nation because the nation is built by the people who live in the country. Healthy population equals healthy economy. Health is the greatest social capital a nation can have. Without a healthy, productive citizenship, a country can’t be economically stable. 

Promise to ourself

So let’s promise ourself a healthy us, make sure and be positive to bring a difference in us. As this will be much needed, fighting and building an individual and also a healthy nation now and post pandemic. 

“Every human being is the author of his own health or disease.”  

                                                                                      -Buddha 

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