Attaining better quality of life is the aim of all facets of development and particularly of health promotion programmes. Of course, diverse programmes of development give different emphasis to one or the other components of development schemes. Nevertheless, the goals of all programmes work through different routes of development to the ultimate goal of improving the quality of life. In this context, certain aspects of social development, which have close linkage between them have to be examined to explore their interactions and complimentary nature to assess the overall quality of life. The indicators that have more relevance to explain quality of life particularly oriented to the health an allied aspects have been discussed here. However, not all such factors are covered here because of the non-availability of certain data. Nevertheless, most of the major indicators of quality of life have been included here. They are nutrition, health and well being, mortality, longevity, social and technological aspects.
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| Selected Dimensions of Quality of Life in Asian Countries |
Quality of life is a relative, multi-dimensional-cum-multi-disciplinary concept which aims to achieve all round improvement in human life. As a result of such progress in quality of life, human beings may improve their life physically, mentally, socially and spiritually. It also leads people to attain better healthy life through safe ecology, relatively tension free and peaceful environment to pursue sustainable future development.
In a population of a given country, certain group of people will be extremely disadvantaged not only became their quality of life is poor but also because their existence is at stake. Their earnings will be so low that they cannot afford to have a minimum nutritionally adequate diet plus essential non-food requirements. Such population is termed as people below absolute poverty level. According to this concept, let us see how these Asian countries have crossed this bottom level of quality of life. As expected most of the Bangladesh population live below the poverty line (86.0%). India is second to Bangladesh with 33 per cent of population living below poverty line, which of course is significantly much less compared to the extreme poverty-stricken population of Bangladesh. However, it is surprising to see that 25 per cent of Thailand's population still lives below poverty level, though Thailand is' far more developed compared to India. It is astonishing to see that South Korea (1 1.0%) tops the Asian countries (excluding Japan) followed by China (13.0%) and Indonesia (16.0%) in raising most of their population above the poverty line. In these three countries only negligible population continue to live (see the figure in brackets) below the poverty line. Is it not a lesson for India to rapidly raise her one-third population above poverty line and also improve the quality of life of her population?
Another indicator manifesting the quality of life is the daily per capita calorie intake as percentage of requirement. Once again Bangladesh (103) followed by India (109) are the two poorest countries where per capita calorie intake is the least among these Asian countries, surprisingly Indonesia (136) top in better nutritional status followed by China (126), South Korea (120), Sri Lanka (119), and Thailand (1 15) in this order. In fact, low birth weight of baby will also be a function of calorie intake along with other factors. In this aspect, China (9.0%), South Korea (9.0%) have the least problem of low birth weight babies which speak about better quality of life of most of their children. More or less similar situation exists in Indonesia (14.0%) and Thailand (13.0%). Therefore, the disadvantaged countries as far as infant's quality of life is concerned are Bangladesh (50.0%), India (33.0%) and Sri Lanka (25.0%). As you know, the above three factors very much influence infant, childhood and maternal mortality.The level of these three mortality rate also indicate the quality of population in these countries. As far as these mortality rates are concerned, Bangladesh is on the top with highest level of mortality followed by India, Indonesia and Thailand respectively. However, South Korea followed by China have the least infant, childhood and maternal mortality rates. Even Sri Lanka is better privileged in this respect than India and Bangladesh. What lesson can India learn out of this? How did Korea, China, Thailand and Sri Lanka succeeded in drastically reducing their mortality patterns? The answers to this question can be seen in relation to factors such better sanitation, availability of safe drinking water, favorable ratios of doctor, nurse and para-medical personnel, effective strategies followed in health promotion, priority given to health programmes giving emphasis to health education and prevention of diseases. Longevity is a crucial indicator of quality of life which is once again influenced by the above mentioned factors and two other factors that follow, namely female literacy and communication facilities for education. In this respect china (72) followed by Sri Lanka (71) and South Korea (70) top the Asian Countries (excluding Japan) in reaching the top level of life expectancy. Of course, Thailand (69) is equally successful in this regard. Once again Bangladesh (52) is unfortunate in this because her life expectancy is the lowest in Asian countries. However, India (60) and Indonesia (62) are far behind the four countries mentioned above. It is a pity that India having the third largest scientific man power in the world is lagging behind vary much in expectation of life at birth compared to several other Asian countries.
Two other social and technological indicators of quality of life can be measured on the basis of female literacy and the availability of communication technology (Radio and TV). Surprisingly, female literacy has become universal in South Korea (95.0%), Thailand (94.0%) and Sri Lanka (90.0%). Equally fascinating is
the successful achievement of female literacy in China (74.0%) and Indonesia (74.0%). Here again, Bangladesh (47.0%) is the most backward nation followed by India (55.0%). It is the female illiteracy which is the key factor for poor quality of life because it has got linkages with most of the factors mentioned earlier. Yet another equally important manifestation of quality of life is the use of effective mass media viz., TV and Radio. Regarding Radio, South Korea is the only country which has universal coverage.
However, Sri Lanka, China, Thailand and Indonesia have progressed considerably in this field. But they are still backward because the majority of the population does not own radio. The situation in Bangladesh and India is still worse. They have to go a long way in improving this aspect of quality of life which is necessary for essential development of knowledge and improving the life style. Regarding TV, it is very negligible in most of the Asian countries except in South Korea and Thailand. But even there it is very inadequate. For developing countries, T.V is a luxury at present but not radio. Quality of life of mother and children and also family as a whole is also reflected based on the adoption of small family norm and acceptance of contraception. In this respect, South Korea and China have achieved spectacular success followed by Thailand and Sri Lanka but Bangladesh,-India and Indonesia have to go a long way to achieve success in this programme in order to improve the quality of life of women in particular.
Epidemiological transition takes place in a country based on the level of overall development. When a country is economically and socially backward and so also manifests poor quality of life, people in such countries suffer mostly from deficiency diseases, communicable diseases and other diseases caused by poor hygiene, sanitation and so on. All these reflect the stage of pre-transition in epidemiological change. On the other hand, when a country progresses, hygiene, sanitation and nutritional status will improve. Consequently scientific attitude and behavior takes place. However, pollution of water, soil, air and noise grow with development. As a result, they lead to occurrence of different types of diseases like cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes and so on. But communicable diseases in the poor countries will be reduced to the minimum. These changes in disease patterns based on level of development of a country contribute to the epidemiological transition. In fact, all these changes affect the quality of life of population both in developing and developed countries.
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