Socio-cultural reasons of infant mortality in uttarakhand–health care provider versus community’s perspective

Introduction -State of Uttarakhand had shown staggering progress in Infant Mortality rate(IMR) for couple of years. The present research paper is the part of comprehensive study done to analyse the factors associated with Infant Mortality, which focuses on qualitative analysis of the provider and community’s perspective about various socio-cultural reasons for infant mortality. Methods: Study was conducted in 8 blocks of 3districts of Uttarakhand .In-depth Interviews(IDIs) and community meetings were conducted for data collection. IDIs were conducted with Medical officers, ANMs, AWWs and ASHAs. Data was subjected to systematic qualitative analysis for finalizing the results. Observation: Study showed that transportation, poor economic status and unavailability of low cost health services are the major factors for poor health care seeking behaviour. Study revealed evident gaps in the awareness level of community members and certain harmful traditional practices as the associated reasons for infant mortality.