State health minister Mangal Pandey on Wednesday released seven working papers on issues related to population health characteristics and behaviour and the health interventions needed in Bihar.

Speaking at a function organized on the Asian Development Research Institute (ADRI) premises, executive director of ADRI’s Centre for Health Policy (CHP) Basudeb Guha-Khasnobis said: “The papers will help formulate future health policies in the state. One of the papers has found lack of participation of male partners as one of the main reasons behind the 21.2% unmet family planning needs in the state. It was also observed in another paper that mental illnesses posed an emerging non-communicable disease challenge.”

Dr Vikash R Keshri of CHP Specialist-Health Policy & Systems said: “Another paper argued that interventions by all partners can produce much better results if the state assumes a stronger stewardship role. We have a coexistence of public and private providers and very little is known about the latter. The immediate implementation of the Clinical Establishments (Registration and Regulation) Act, 2010 is recommended. It is noted that by January 2017, almost 4,500 clinical establishments were registered in Jharkhand under the Act, compared to none in Bihar. There is an urgent need for government to start regulating private sector in healthcare.”

He said an overall reduction in the burden of out-of-pocket expenses was observed, but it was not so for the poorest 20% of the population due to various potential factors responsible, such as inequity, lack of awareness and education, discrimination at many levels leading to lack of access to even public facilities.

A round-table discussion was also organized by ADRI in collaboration with UNICEF, Bihar and Centre for Budget and Governance Accountability (CBGA), New Delhi to share the findings of a research study focused on budget outlays for nutrition interventions in Bihar in the most recent years.

The study stated that Bihar has made noticeable improvements in nutritional outcomes over the last decade, with stunting among children under five years of age falling from 56% in 2005-06 to 48% in 2015-16. However, the level of under-nutrition in the state remains high with significant intrastate disparities in nutritional outcomes.