Addressing the Health Drawback of Rural Populations:How Does Literature Evidence Inform Rural Health Policies?

Rural health has been an interesting concept in sociology and medical anthropology since last few decades. Plenty of research work has been done on the health culture and health behavior of the rural people across the globe. However, in Karnataka very few studies have been done on this topic. For the first time noted Medical anthropologists Rever (1924), has done land marking work on the concept of health and illness of native people. Clements (1932) has done work on the basic concept of disease focusing black magic, sorcery, sprit intrusion etc in rural areas. Rural areas in general are marked by poor implementation of health facilities. Various Governments have implemented many rural specific health programmes. High concentration of infectious diseases, absence of effective health education, lack of fundamental facilities, problems in the implantation are adversely affecting the rurals' health today. However various social and cultural factors play a vital role in case of rural health behaviour. This paper is based on the review of current literatures to provide new theoretical background in framing rural health polices.