India's Public Health: The Way Forward

Public health systems are an essential part of a country’s development infrastructure. By focusing on reducing exposure to communicable diseases, they are a low-cost and highly effective way to raise population health and productivity. Since the 1950s, most countries in Asia and Latin America have built up their public health systems, but India has instead invested primarily in increasing access to curative services. This paper describes simple models from Tamil Nadu and Sri Lanka, for strengthening public health systems across India ---- all within India’s existing budgetary allocations to the health sector and within India’s existing administrative structures. This would greatly improve people’s health in India, and support the country’s effort to become a developed economy.