Understanding the Linkages of Household Environmental Deprivation, Asset Index and Child Survival in India

Often the household environmental factors are combined with the household assets in explaining the economic differentials in population and health parameters of developing countries. Though the utility of wealth index (that combines household environment with assets) in explaining health and health care utilization is established, its utility as a proxy of economic measures is contested. In this paper we attempted to differentiate the role of household environmental factors and the household assets in explaining the infant mortality (IMR) and the under-five mortality (U5MR) in India. We hypothesize that there are no significant differences in IMR and U5MR among those households residing in poor household environmental condition and those who are poor in asset in India. We have used the data from the National Family Health Survey (NFHS-3), 2005-06, India, a population based large scale representative survey. Bi-variate analyses, principal component analysis, life-table technique and hazard model are used in the analyses. Two composite indices namely, an asset index based on consumer durables of the households and household environmental deprivation index based on the household environmental factors are constructed. The indices are categorized as poor and non-poor based on the 50% of the median composite score. Result shows that the correlation coefficient of asset index and household environmental deprivation index is weak. Further, there are no significant differences of IMR and U5MR among households living in poor household environment and those are poor in asset cutting across the states. Results of cox-proportional hazard model indicate that the household environmental factors have significant impact on child survival. It calls for improving the household environmental conditions of the household in promoting child survival in India.