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This study has been carried out to provide a database for management of health and explaining the diversity of people s health status and the magnitude of influence of each Social Determinants of Health (SDH) in the Rural Andhra Pradesh (AP) for the attainment of higher levels of health status. The objectives of the study are, (i) to identify and to categorise the various indicators that are related to social health levels; (ii) to demonstrate the extent of the influence on the rural people s health of these categorised health determinants; (iii) to study the interrelationships between the social health status and its determinants; (iv) to make a comparative analysis of rural health levels between three different regions of the state of Andhra Pradesh; and (v) to facilitate formulation of appropriate policy framework for the attainment of higher level of rural health. This study meets the basic requirement by analysing the real situation. The attainment of health status has been mostly a function of the government policy and an analytical study of the present type would help formulation of appropriate policy format for the management and evaluation of health schemes.

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The author, Thota Sree Mallikharjuna Rao is an Associate Professor & Head, School of Management at the International Institute of Information Technology, Pune, India. He did Ph.D. in Statistics from the Gandhigram Rural University (2010). His areas of research interest include Applied Statistics and Development Research.

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