Social Determinants and Reproductive Health of Tribal Women in India

Since last two decades, India has achieved high economic growth rate but this growth is flawed by the country¿s poor performance in human development and health indicators. The reproductive health such as child health, maternal morbidity and mortality are remaining high compared with other countries of South and East Asian regions. In fact, Indiäs health indicators are as equal to the countries those having poor economic growth rate. As calculated between 301 to 450 maternal deaths occur for every 100,000 live births and approximately 78000 to 117000 women die annually due to pregnancy related complications. This indicator is coinciding with multiple aspects such as caste, class, gender and locality. As an officially there are three categories of castes; Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and other Backward classes. The SCs are located at the bottom of social hierarchy, constitute around 16 percent of the population and who largely lives in rural areas as agricultural labourers. The scheduled Tribes constituted 8 percent of total population and are have been socially deprived. Rest of the 76 percent people are belongs to other backward and forward castes.