The Health Workforce in India

Abstract

This study on the health workforce is based on data at district level from the Indian census of 2001. The census of India 2001 canvassed information on the occupation of main and marginal workers, which is coded using the National Classification of occupations (NCO) 2004 at four-digit level. There are 19 distinct occupations of health workers at the four-digit level in NCO, which have been aggregated into nine separate categories for the purposes of this study (Table 1). In addition, we have further aggregated some of these categories to form relevant groups, namely all health workers, all doctors and nurses, all doctors and AYUSH doctors.

The data for this study were specifically extracted for each district in the country from the 2001 census by the Office of the Registrar General of India. These data on main plus marginal health workers consist of district tables that cross-classify the nine health worker categories by four education levels and by medical qualification; the data are also disaggregated by urban-rural stratum and gender of worker. This information is contained in four pages of tables for each of the country’s 593 districts.