Nexus of Health and Development: Modelling Crude Birth Rate and Maternal Mortality Ratio Using Nighttime Satellite Images

Abstract

Health and development are intricately related. Although India has made significant progress in the last few decades in the health sector and overall growth in GDP, there are still large regional differences in both health and development. The main objective of this paper is to develop techniques for the prediction of health indicators for all the districts of India and examine the correlations between health and development. The level of electrification and district domestic product (DDP) are considered as two fundamental indicators of development in this research. These data, along with health metrics and the information from two nighttime satellite images, were used to propose the models. These successfully predicted the health indicators with less than a 7%-10% error. The chosen health metrics, such as crude birth rate (CBR) and maternal mortality rate (MMR), were mapped for the whole country at the district level. These metrics showed very strong correlation with development indicators (correlation coefficients ranging from 0.92 to 0.99 at the 99% confidence interval). This is the first attempt to use Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) (satellite) imagery in a socio-economic study. This paper endorses the observation that areas with a higher DDP and level of electrification have overall better health conditions.

Conceptualising the effect of access to electricity on health in low- and middle-income countries: A systematic review

“…The authors cited increased access to information about contraceptives and family planning through television exposure and decreased child mortality due to improvements in sanitation and healthcare as potential pathways (Grimm et al, 2015). Roychowdhury and Jones (2014) also found a negative association between the percentage of total households with electricity in a district and crude birth rates in India using a cross-sectional study design, although the authors did not discuss potential mechanisms of effect (Roychowdhury & Jones, 2014).…”

“…Among studies that evaluated mortality, rates were consistently found to decrease with electrification. In a cross-sectional study in India, for instance, Roychowdhury & Jones, (2014) observed that maternal mortality rates were significantly negatively correlated with the percentage of total households in the district with electricity, although infant mortality rates were not (Roychowdhury & Jones, 2014). Mbonye et al (2007) found that having electricity at a healthcare facility had a protective effect on maternal deaths in a cross-sectional study of health facilities in Uganda, due to their increased capacity to provide emergency obstetric care (Mbonye et al, 2007).…”

“…Recent reports, however, estimate that approximately 1 billion people still live their daily lives without electricity, the majority of whom are concentrated in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia (International Energy Agency, 2017b), while hundreds of millions more have unreliable access. Access to electricity has been correlated with a number of health outcomes, including increased immunisation (Chen, Chindarkar, & Xiao, 2016;Majid, 2013;Patra, 2009Patra, , 2012, improved respiratory health (Accinelli, Lopez, & Aguirre, 2015;Barron & Torero, 2017), and lower infant and maternal mortality (Mbonye et al, 2007;Roychowdhury & Jones, 2014;van de Poel, O'Donnell, & van Doorslaer, 2009;Wang, 2002). Expanding access to electricity may therefore also be an important driver of improved global health outcomes.…”

Crude Birth Rate and Crude Mortality Rate in India: A Case of Application of Regression in Healthcare

“…Roy and Jones [2] developed a technique for the prediction of health indicators for all the districts of India and examine the correlations between health and development. The two fundamental indicators of this research are the levels of electrification and district domestic product (DDP).…”

Remote Sensing and Geospatial Technologies in Public Health

“…In their paper, "Nexus of Health and Development: Modelling Crude Birth Rate and Maternal Mortality Ratio Using Nighttime Satellite Images", Koel Roychowdhury and Simon Jones combine development indicators, health indicators, and nighttime satellite images to propose models for predicting health determinants and development determinants [17].…”