Abstract :

According to World Health Organization (WHO), the Social Determinants of Health (SDH) have an important influence on health inequities – the unfair and avoidable differences in health status seen within and between countries. In countries at all levels of income, health and illness follow a social gradient: the lower the socioeconomic position, the worse the health. The main objective of this paper is to understand these determinants that are prevailing and its relation with the health status of the elderly people in mountain region of Uttarakhand. In order to accomplish the study the data have been collected from 183 households from the three different geographic mountain areas of six administrative regions. The collected data have been further analyzed with SPSS latest version. The findings of study shows that & the self stated very poor health status majority were from the Garhwal mountain region, females those were widows, those were above 81 years, Shudra by caste followed by Khatriya caste, residing in joint family, living in Kuchha houses, civil pensioners, educated above high school & above and average income group followed by high and low income group of the elderly households. However, with respect to the poor health status, occupation, education and income of the household of elderly as the p-values associated with the Ch-square statistics are found to be less than the level of significance. The study concluded with that in built environment of the elderly people like the region, caste, being a female and widow and age above 81 years followed by living amenities like Kuchha house and residing in a joint family system are more significant with respect to the poor health status, while occupation, education and income of the household of elderly as the p-values associated with the Ch-square statistics is found to be less than the level of significance in the mountain region of Uttarakhand.

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Keywords :

Elderly People, Health Equity, Mountain Region, Social Determinants of Health (SDH), Uttarakhand

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