Road to family planning and RMNCHN related SDGs: Tracing the role of public health spending in India

ABSTRACT

Globally, public health expenditure (PHE) is closely associated with Reproductive, Maternal, Newborn, Child Health, and Nutrition (RMNCHN) and Family Planning (FP) outcomes. In India, the role of PHE in shaping the progress towards the attainment of RMNCHN and FP-related Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is not widely documented. Using the four consecutive rounds of National Family Health Survey (NFHS), we have investigated the progress in RMNCHN and FP indicators and their association with PHE by applying robust econometric modelling. The findings suggest that although there is noticeable progress in the RMNCHN indicators from 1992–93–2015–16, India has failed to achieve RMNCHN targets related to Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Lack of noteworthy correlation between FP indicators and PHE supports the argument that post National Rural Health Mission (2005), the core family welfare expenditure suffered a setback despite the absolute rise in PHE. However, correlation plots and the multivariate panel data regression analyses affirm that even with a moderate rise, PHE emerges as an important predictor of RMNCHN outcomes in the country. Thus, the road to achieving RMNCHN and FP-related SDGs demands to avoid austerity on PHE and strengthen the integration of RMNCHN and FP programmes at the operational level.

KEYWORDS:

• Public health financing
• family planning
• reproductive
• maternal and child health
• nutrition
• India

Acknowledgments

The author's thanks Prof. P.M. Kulkarni, Rtd. Professor, Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi, Prof. Arvind Pandey, Rtd. Director and Professor of National Institute of Medical Statistics (NIMS) and Dr. Sanjay Kumar, UNFPA, New Delhi for their valuable comments on the previous draft of the paper. We also thank MD Juel Rana and Rakesh Mishra for their assistance in data compilation.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The study was generously funded by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), New Delhi [Contract No. UNFPA/IND/2018-005].