Health Programmes and Empowerment of Rural Women: An Evaluation with special reference to District Almora, Uttarakhand

Book excerpt: “Health Programmes and Empowerment of Rural Women: An Evaluation with special reference to District Almora, Uttarakhand” deals with evidence-based findings that emerge directly from the studies carried out in field. Rural women of Uttarakhand are the backbone of the social, economic and cultural structure of the State. They not only look after the young and the old in the household, but also carry out a number of chores and are consistently put to arduous multi-tasking. Of late, concern for their health, has become one of the focal points in the policy arena. It is also well known that there is an intrinsic relationship between women’s health and their empowerment. In-depth analysis resulting from field study of the impact of different health programmes for women launched by the government has been presented in the book. The impact of programmes which have bearing on women's health, such as NRHM (now NHM), JSY, JSSK, VHND, RCH, ARSH, RBSK and immunisation programmes have been covered in detail. Conclusions are drawn based on data collected from field. The analysis of this data provides a deep insight into the true picture of the health programmes in hill villages. The book presents an in-depth study and field reality on women-health related issues and impact of different government programmes. A methodology of calculating Health Empowerment Index (HEI) for rural women has also been devised. The endeavour has been to evaluate the impact of health schemes on rural women in the study area. It is expected that the book would generate interest amongst the policy makers, social scientists, scholars and people working in the field of development planning with special concern for empowerment of rural women and also provide impetus to further studies in the area.