Why Tribal People Die Young?

Change in food intake and poor access to healthcare may be the reasons behind tribal populations' low life expectancy

- Taran Deol

SEVENTY-YEAR-OLD Jetli has seen her family grow by three generations. This is lesser than what her ancestors witnessed. When I was six years old, at least five generations of my family used to live together, she said. A resident of Chhapri village in Madhya Pradesh's Jhabua district, Jetli believes people of her Bhil tribal community are not living for as long as they used to a few decades ago. Doctors say this is due to people getting married later and having fewer children.

But Jetli's assumption is not entirely wrong. If you are born as a member of a scheduled tribe (ST) in India today, you are likely to live four years lesser than a higher caste Hindu, according to a recent study by researchers with the Research Institute for Compassionate Economics, a non-profit focused on health and well-being in India. Published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) in March 2022, the study says that Relative to higher-caste Hindus, Adivasi life expectancy is more than 4 y [years] lower, Dalit life expectancy is more than 3 y lower, and Muslim life expectancy is about 1 y lower. Its estimates are based on the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare's Annual Health Survey, 201011, which analyses nine states: Assam, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand. Among these, ST groups in Madhya Pradesh have the lowest life expectancy; for men it is 57.4 years and for women 60.1 years.