Level of malnutrition:

• The condition in which the food taken by individuals lack proper nutrition i.e. the food lacks sufficient calories, protein, carbohydrate, vitamin and minerals is called malnutrition.
• India’s per capita income is low and there exists a widespread income disparity. Hence, in spite of rise in agricultural production people with low income are unable to get nutritive food i.e. they suffer from malnutrition.

Life expectancy and infant mortality:

Life expectancy:

• The average expected life span of a new born baby is called the life expectancy.
• The average life expectancy of people in a country is based on nutritive food, cleanliness, pure drinking water and health services. Poor people are deprived of such facilities and so they have low life expectancy.
  Infant mortality:
• The number of deaths per thousand new born before reaching the age of one year is called the infant mortality.
• The rate of infant mortality depends on availability of health services, mother’s education, vaccination among children and nutrition of food.
• Life expectancy and infant mortality is also an indicator of poverty with respect to poor health services.

Medical facilities:

• Medical facilities include number of hospitals, doctors, nurses, compounders, etc. available to provide health care to the citizens of country.
• In developed countries medical facilities are widely available and hence life expectancy of the citizens is high and infant mortality rate is low. Whereas this is not the case in developing countries and hence the life expectancy is less.
• As per an estimate there is 1 doctor per 350 people in developed countries ’ whereas there is 1 doctor per 6000 people in developing countries.
• In developing countries because of poverty, people do not have access to medical facilities and therefore life expectancy rate is low and infant mortality is high.
• In developing countries, every year 1.7 crore people die from diarrhoea, Malaria and T.B.
• 2.3 crore people are suffering from AIDS world over. Out of this 90% belong to developing economies.

Drinking water:

Lack of pure drinking water is the root cause of all the health problems.

• In India around 63% of the population gets drinking water from treated sources i.e. the water is given treatment of purification, around 9% population gets drinking water from untreated sources and around 26% population gets drinking water from other sources like ponds, tube well, hand pump, etc.
• Unavailability of pure drinking water leads to many water prone diseases which again impacts life expectancy and infant mortality rate.
• Thus, drinking water is an indicator of poverty.

Provision for toilets:

• India is a land of villages because around 70% population lives in villages. Most of the villages still use untreated sources of water like tube well, hand pump, canal, ponds, etc. Hence, villagers are more prone to water related diseases.
• Cleanliness is another important aspect and it is directly related to sanitation facilities.
• In India as per census 2011 report, 34% of the households do not have toilets in their home and this leads to several diseases.