A gender sensitive approach in reproductive health among poor women: findings from Health of the Urban Poor (HUP) project

Vipul Pandey, International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS)
Arpita Das, International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS)
Shri Kant Singh, International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS)

This study addresses the problem of reproductive morbidity in low income slums of India. This paper presents the work undertaken by the Health of the Urban Poor (HUP) Project to diagnose the magnitude of the problem by the adoption of reproductive health perspectives in strategies addressing reproductive health issues. The data extracted from HUP Project, recently collected from both Slum and Non Slum across three cities namely Bhubaneswar, Jaipur and Pune in India, in year 2011-12. In order to ascertain data requirements and articulation of various contexts of reproductive health vulnerabilities this paper uses applications of bi-variate and multivariate techniques. Results from HPU data illustrates the high incidences of reproductive morbidity across all cities which is captured as STIs. Therefore, health care planners and health educators need to empower women and also stress the specific relationship between women’s control over their own bodily rights, Sexuality and risk of reproductive morbidity.