THE 1993 World Development Report (WDR) was subtitled ‘Investing in Health’ and advanced the argument that better health outcomes facilitate economic development.1 Even if one contests the direction of causation, correlation between better health outcomes and higher levels of economic development is not in doubt.

The success of smallpox eradication in the mid-1970s drew attention to the immunization programme in India. The Expanded Programme on Immunization (EPI), developed for immunizing children during the first year of life was launched in 1978 mainly in the urban areas. Through the subsequent years, more vaccines were included in the programme, e.g. OPV in 1979 and the vaccine to immunize pregnant mothers with tetanus toxoid (TT) vaccine in 1983.

An exogenously defined poverty line yields poverty headcounts between any two points in time that are a net outcome of the two-way traffic into and out of poverty. This paper argues that, for the rural Indian context, where housing is too lumpy and illiquid to be used for consumption smoothing, transitions in housing quality in cross-sectional data sets can provide revealed evidence of household perceptions of downside risk to their current consumption levels.

Nature Outlook maps the challenges in tackling the malaria epidemic.

Rain is the only source of water on the earth and for conserving this precious resource, the base is the land. Shortage of rainfall coupled with its erratic distribution during rainy season causes severe water deficit conditions resulting in various intensities of droughts. Drought varies in different parts of the world depending on the amount and reliability of rainfall received in a particular region. Gulbarga district is one of the drought prone districts of the Karnataka state.

South Asia experienced the second-highest economic growth rate among the different regions of the world between 2000 and 2008, including in recent times of economic recession. However, this economic growth has not been accompanied by any notable improvement in the economic position of women in South Asia. The ratio of female to male earnings and economic activity rate has barely improved during these eight years, the share of vulnerable employment in total female employment in South Asia has not decreased significantly.

Data on insecticide use for vector control are essential for guiding pesticide management systems on judicious and appropriate use, resistance management, and reduction of risks to human health and the environment. The researchers studied the global use and trends of insecticide use for control of vector-borne diseases for the period 2000 through 2009.