Executive Summary: Health Seeking Pathways in Four Indian States

This is the Executive Summary of the report based on a study undertaken jointly by NCAER and the Nossal Institute for Global Health, Melbourne School of Population and Global Health at the University of Melbourne, Australia, on healthcare seeking pathways to improve healthcare and reduce the overall disease burden in India. This report presents new survey findings that help shed light on key questions pertaining to healthcare such as out-of-pocket spending, catastrophic health expenditure, distress financing, treatment pathways, and failure to access care when warranted for household members. The study was conducted in two States with relatively less developed healthcare systems, that is, Odisha and Uttar Pradesh, and two States with relatively more developed healthcare systems, that is, Maharashtra and Punjab. The findings presented in the report have significant policy and practice implications for improving the functioning of the Indian health system.