Emerging Health Issues in Sri Lanka

Abstract

Firstly, the seminar focuses upon changes in reproductive health issues by mainly centering on fertility since there was an increase of fertility during the recent past. This increase has been mainly due to the increase of fertility among the older women in the reproductive age span. However, this increase can be identified as a temporary phenomenon occurring during post-transitional time periods when fertility is at low stationary situation. Secondly, changes in overall, infant, child and maternal mortality are discussed. In the case of infant mortality, it is envisaged that Sri Lanka needs to concentrate more on reducing neo-natal mortality as the incidence of neo-natal mortality is still at relatively high level. For this, Emergency Obstetric Care has been proposed. In this regard, the government needs to support the healthcare providers since this intervention is expensive. Moreover, age of degenerative and man-made diseases as well as the age of delayed degenerative diseases and resurgence of infectious and parasitic diseases were reviewed in the context of epidemiologic transition. A special emphasis is done to show why men seem to be increasingly exposed to high risk mortality factors and demonstrate at which age men are vulnerable to higher risk. It was proposed that the government should be focusing on ‘morbiidity compression’ polices rather than relying on ‘morbidity expansion’ policies.