Health and Infrastructural Security of Rural Households for Sustainable Livelihood: A Study in Bundelkhand Region of India

Abstract

Poor health tends to be critical for marginal and small farmers who work in their own field and cannot afford to hire an alternative farmer during the time of illness. The research was conducted to assess the health and infrastructural status of farm households. The present study purposefully conducted in Bundelkhand.From each selected village a list of dairy farmers based on land holding was prepared and respondents were selected based on proportionate stratified random sampling method. Data were gathered through personal interview method with the help of the structured interview schedule. The collected data were quantified and analyzed. After data collection, the results were analyzed by using some statistical tools like percentage analysis, correlation and regression. Results revealed that among the marginal farmers the majority (59.26%) of the respondents had low health security, followed by medium and high health security i.e. 32.10 and 8.64 percent respectively. The variables such as annual income and milk production had positive and highly significant relationship with health security at the 1 percent level of significance. This shows that as the value of the annual income and milk production increases the health security of the respondents also increases. The results showed that 58.20 percent variability towards infrastructural security was due to explained or undertaken variables included in the study and the remaining was due to some other factors. The fitted regression model was observed to be significant at the 1 percent level of significance. It can be concluded that there is a need to stress upon improving their overall health and infrastructural security.