National Health Goals

  • Reduction of Infant Mortality Rate (IMR) to 32 per 1000 live births by 2017
  • Reduction of Maternal Mortality Ratio (MMR) to 123 per 100,000 live births by 2017
  • Reduction of Total Fertility Rate (TFR) to 2.1 by 2017
  • Prevention and reduction of under-nutrition in children under 3 years to half of NFHS-3 (2005-2006) levels 27 per cent by 2017
  • Prevention and reduction of anemia among women aged 15-49 years to 28 percent by end of 2017
  • Raising child sex ratio in the 0-6 years age group from 914 to 950
  • Prevention and reduction of burden of communicable and non-communicable diseases (including mental illness) and injuries
  • Reduction of poor household’s out-of-pocket expenditure to 1.87 percent of GDP by the end of 2017
  • Reduce Tuberculosis annual incidence and mortality by half by the end of 2017
  • Reduce Leprosy prevalence to <1/10,000 population and incidence to zero in all districts by the end of 2017
  • Annual malaria incidence of <1/1,000 by the end of 2017
  • Microfilaria prevalence <1 percent in all districts by the end of 2017
  • Case fatality rate of Dengue <1 percent by the end of 2017
  • Containment of Chikungunya outbreaks by the end of 2017
  • Reduction in Japanese Encephalitis mortality by 30 percent by the end of 2017
  • Elimination of Kala-azar by 2015, that is <1 case per 10,000 population in all blocks
  • Reduce new infections of HIV/AIDS to zero and provide comprehensive care, support and treatment services to all who require it

Community Medicine

Goal and Roles

Community Medicine is a specialist branch of medicine which deals with matters relating not to individuals but to groups.

The Royal Commission on Medical Education defined "community medicine" as an inclusive term embracing the practice of public health and medical administration and teaching and research in (Preventive & ) social medicine.

Specialist in Community Medicine expected to be responsible for assessing the health needs of "the community" - that is of the population residing in an administratively defined locality; they would advance preventive medicine in close collaboration with the clinical services; they would be the link between the health service and the local government authorities acting as adviser to the environmental health services, school health services and the social services of the latter; and they would participate in the administration of the hospital and family practitioner services by advising on long-term planning, the integration of preventive and curative medicine, the evaluation of the effectiveness of services and the deployment of resources.

Underlying specialist skills in Community Medicine branch are epidemiology and management theory and practice.

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