March 2004, Volume 10 No. 1

ARTICLE 4

Socioeconomic Condition and Anaemia among the Mahishya Population of Southern West Bengal, India

Premananda Bharati¹, Rohini Ghosh² & Ranjan Gupta^2
1 Anthropology and Human Genetics Unit, Indian Statistical Institute, 203 B.T.Road, Kolkata-700108, India
² Centre National De La Recherche (CNRS), UPR 2147 , 44 rue de’ l’Amiral Mouchez, 75014 Paris, France 

ABSTRACT
A cross-sectional study was conducted among the Mahishya population of Chakpota village in Southern West Bengal to determine the relationship between socio-economic conditions and certain haematological parameters, haemoglobin level and haemotocrit. Households were divided into high, middle and low socioeconomic groups on the basis of per capita income per year. The demographic data were collected from all the 255 households comprising 404 adult males and 383 adult females (above 20 years of age). Higher values in the parameters were observed among the males in all the three socioeconomic sub-groups. Significant differences in haemoglobin level and haemotocrit of males were observed between the three socioeconomic groups (p= <.01). On the contrary, insignificant differences in haemoglobin level and haemocrit were observed between the three socioeconomic groups among the females. Higher nutritional intake and lower parasitic infections may be responsible for the higher levels of the haematological parameters in the higher socioeconomic groups. Our study reveals that sex discrimination in food sharing seems to be the major cause for the gender difference in haemoglobin status in all the three economic groups. It is apparent from the study that cultural factors play an important role in determining the haemoglobin status at micro-level, even in high-income households.

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