ABSTRACT
Political will is the key to public health policy-making and a major driving force for the attainment of Universal Health Coverage (UHC) in any nation. To achieve UHC, the Indian government laid down National Health Policy in 1983 and updated it in 2002 and recently in 2017. This recent policy emphasized increasing healthcare spending and economic growth. In the current budget, there is an increment in the share of GDP of 0.34% from the previous year's allocation, but still staggering for the envisaged 2.5% to achieve UHC. Enthusiastic announcements of opening 157 new nursing colleges, a separate programme for eliminating sickle cell anemia by 2047, and Centers of excellence establishment for pharma companies for promoting research and development and focusing on Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups (PVTGs) are the few overarching and new highlights in the current budget. But, in a country so huge and varied in terms of its needs in every sector, the announcements in the financial budget speech taking India forward in becoming a "shining star" is a matter of debate. This is an attempt to review the budget for this financial year in the healthcare sector and what it means: is the country willing to build a self-driven healthcare sector in the Amrit Kaal with strong public finances and a robust financial sector through "efforts by all"?
ABSTRACT
INTRODUCTION: With growing trends in tobacco consumption, it has been observed that the age of initiation is gradually decreasing. To combat the deep-rooted problem of the Society, we need to target the adolescents at the time of their first consumption of tobacco forms. Hence, this study was conducted to assess the pattern of smokeless tobacco use among school going adolescents in senior secondary schools with the assessment of the sociodemographic factors responsible for initiation of smokeless tobacco use by adolescents. METHODS: A cross-sectional survey of total sample of 714 students across 9-11 standards in 3 schools of Delhi was done using a self-administered questionnaire after obtaining approval from Institutional Ethics Committee and School Health Scheme, Delhi. RESULT: Consumption of tobacco was found to be 27.9% at a frequency of 6-9 days in a period of one month and a majority of 31 (39.2%) students initiated the use in the age group of 10-11 years. Among the different SLT products, pan masala combined with zarda with 56 (70.8%) users, was found to be the most commonly consumed SLT product. Grocery shops were preferred POS among the students as (67%) of students obtained the SLT product from this POS. 56 (70.8%) of the students wanted to quit the habit of SLT use whereas 49 (62%) students tried to quit the habit and 43 (54.4%) students sought help in order to quit the habit. DISCUSSION: Such alarming results in terms of low age of initiation in Delhi is an emerging health problem. Adequate cessation programmes and schemes must be developed and strict implementation of laws and policies to achieve a tobacco free youth is the need of hour.