MOBILITY, INEQUALITY AND URBAN HEALTH GOVERNANCE IN INDIA: A PROACTIVE SURVEILLANCE OF PUBLIC HEALTH
The project applies an innovative, geo-ethnographic approach to describe the ways in which individuals
make sense of their world in terms of their health because of their location and their mobility.
The study will be carried out in two wards in Ahmedabad city and will address the following objectives: (i) To map the everyday socio-physical mobility of individuals over a six-month period. (ii) To assess the exposure to socio-environmental factors and pathogens in diverse biosocial arenas in order to map transmission pathways facilitating exposure to diseases. (iii) To identify the institutional reasoning behind the strategies and agents facilitating the individual’s exposure
to various communicable and non-communicable diseases in diverse bio-social arenas.
The project explores diseases typical to urbanisation. Ageing infrastructure, high levels of inequality,
poor urban governance, rapidly growing economies, changing lifestyle, and highly dense housing,
accompanied mobility of people and their resources, all offer environments conducive for spread
of re-emerging and newly emerging communicable (CDs) and non-communicable diseases (NCDs). These
facilitate spread of and exposure to pathogens,
chemical compounds and changing social habits and lifestyles, significantly affecting public health.
Researchers
VEENA IYER
Veena Iyer, a Public Health specialist, is an Associate Professor at IIPHG. Her areas of academic
and research work include Infectious diseases, Maternal health, and Urban health. She is a qualified
medical practitioner from Goa Medical College (1990) and has secured an MPH from Emory University,
Atlanta, U.S.A (2009). She is presently registered for a Ph.D. at Karolinska Institutet, Sweden.
Her research studies are located in Gujarat, India. Her publications have focused on (a) the
Chiranjeevi program (a Public-Private-Partnership for Obstetric care), (b) the infectious disease
burden in Gujarat and the laboratory capacity in the state for their surveillance, (c) Effect of
climate effects on typhoid incidence in
Ahmedabad and Surat (d) Women’s action towards climate resilience to for urban poor Ahmedabad.
Additional writing / Articles
Iyer, V. , Choudhury, N. , Azhar, G. and Somvanshi, B. (2014) Drinking Water Quality Surveillance in
a Vulnerable Urban Ward of Ahmedabad. Health, 6, 1165-1171. doi: 10.4236/health.2014.611143.Iyer
V, Sharma A, Cottagiri AS,Mahapatra S, Purohit RH, Vegad M, Shah P, Shah B, Solanki B, Soni S. A Retrospective Audit of Widal Testing for Enteric Fever in the City Of Ahmedabad. Eastern J Med Sci. 2018; 3 (2):14-20
Elliott, Michael, Veena Iyer, and Dharmistha Chauhan. Women’s Action towards Climate Resilience for Urban Poor in South Asia: Baseline Report. Georgia Institute of Technology, 2017.
Elliott, Michael, Veena Iyer, and Dharmistha Chauhan. Women’s Action towards Climate Resilience for Urban Poor in South Asia: Baseline Report. Georgia Institute of Technology, 2017.
Iyer, V., Chaudhary, N., Rajiva, A., Cottagiri, S. A., Sharma, A., & Mavalankar, D. (2019). Laboratory Capacity for Surveillance of Infectious Diseases in Gujarat:
Quantity, Quality, Effects and Way Forward. Health, 11(07), 998.
Iyer, V., Ravalia, A., Bhavsar, K., Abraham, S. C., & Mavalankar, D. (2019). Anti-microbial Resistance surveillance in typhoidal Salmonella in Ahmedabad. Online Journal of Public Health Informatics,
2019 May 30;11(1). DOI: Anti-microbial Resistance surveillance in typhoidal Salmonella in Ahmedabad
Iyer, V., Sharma, A., Abraham, S. C., Nair, D., Solanki, B., & Mavalankar, D. (2019). Effect of climate on Enteric Fever incidence in Ahmedabad, India. Online Journal of Public Health Informatics, 11(1). Iyer V, Ravalia A, Bhavsar K, Abraham SC, Mavalankar D. Anti-microbial Resistance surveillance in typhoidal Salmonella in Ahmedabad. Online Journal of Public Health Informatics.
2019 May 30;11(1). DOI: Effect of climate on Enteric Fever incidence in Ahmedabad, India
Iyer, V., Sidney, K., Mehta, R., & Mavalankar, D. (2016). Availability and provision of emergency obstetric care under a public–private partnership in three districts of Gujarat,
India: lessons for Universal Health Coverage. BMJ global health, 1(1), e000019
Iyer V, Sidney K, Mehta R, Mavalankar D, De Costa A (2017) Characteristics of private partners in Chiranjeevi Yojana, a public-private-partnership to promote institutional births in Gujarat, India – Lessons for universal health coverage.
PLoS ONE 12(10): e0185739. Characteristics of private partners in Chiranjeevi Yojana
Ashwini D, Prakash R, Javalkar P, Thalinja R, Thakaran M, Iyer V, HL Mohan. 2017. Pathways to Absenteeism and School Dropout among Adolescent Girls’ in Koppal Taluka, Karnataka: Findings from Sphoorthi Project Baseline study. Bangalore: Karnataka Health Promotion Trust (KHPT).
Available from
Pathways to Absenteeism and School Dropout among Adolescent Girls’
V.S. SARAVANAN
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V.S. Saravanan is a political and medical geographer trained at universities in India,
United Kingdom and Australia. He specialises in mobility science, urban health, spatial
epidemiology, geo-spatial analysis, risk governance, political ecology and international
cooperation. He applies these in the subject areas of irrigation management, urban water,
public health, health systems research, integrated water management, complex systems and
international collaborations. He applies these scholarly contributions to understand the
governance of risk from global environmental change on human health in India, Uzbekistan,
Ghana and Vietnam. For the project, he brings with him the following research skills: (i)
institutional analytical methods and tools, urban political ecology and geospatial analysis,
(ii) Skills on GIS technique, statistical analytics and qualitative reasoning; and (iii)
methodologies for mobility studies. He has led independent and collaborative projects funded
by German Science Foundation (DFG), Volkswagen Foundation,
German Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), Thyssen Foundation and UNESCO Paris.
Additional writing / Articles
Saravanan, V.S., Min Jung Cho & Fotima Mukhitdinova (2018) Health Risk in Urbanizing Regions: Examining the Nexus of Infrastructure, Hygiene and Health in Tashkent Province, Uzbekistan. International Journal of
Environmental Research and Public Health.15, 2578.
Saravanan,V.S. (2018) Situated politics of urban health in India: Everyday mobility of health implications. World Development. Vol. 104. Pg 375-387.
Saravanan, V.S., Cho, MJ., Tan S.Z, Fayzieva, D and Sebaly, C. (2017) Spatial distribution and
trends of water-transmitted diseases in Tashkent province from 2011-2014.
Central Asian Journal of Global Health, 6(1). Spatial Distribution and Trends of Waterborne Diseases in Tashkent Province
Panagiota, K and Saravanan,V.S. (2017) Biopolitics Gone to Shit? State Narratives versus
Everyday Realities of Water and Sanitation
in the Mekong Delta. World Development,
Biopolitics Gone to Shit? State Narratives versus Everyday Realities of Water and Sanitation in the Mekong Delta
Saravanan, V.S., Idenal M.A., Saiyed, S, Saxena, D and Gerke, S. (2016). Urbanization and Human
Health in Urban India: Institutional analysis of water-borne diseases in urban India’.
Health Policy & Planning.
Institutional analysis of water-borne diseases in urban India
Saravanan, V.S., (2015). Agents of Institutional Change: Contribution of new institutionalism in understanding water governance in India.
Environment Science and Policy. 53, 225-235.
Contribution of new institutionalism in understanding water governance in Indi
Saravanan, V.S., Mavalankar, D., Kulkarni, S., Nussbaum, S., and Weigelt, M. (2015).
Metabolized Water Breeding Diseases in Urban India: Socio-spatiality of Water Problems
and Health Burden in Ahmedabad City. Journal of Industrial Ecology, 19(1), 93-103.
Saravanan, V.S and D. Gondhalekar. (2014). Can water supply and sanitation be a
‘preventive medicine’? Water International Policy Briefing. March 2014.
Saravanan, V.S. 2013. Urbanizing Diseases: Contested institutional
terrain of water-and vector-borne diseases. Water International, 38(7): 875-886.
Saravanan, V.S., Mollinga, P.P and Bogardi J.K.M. (2011) Global Change, Water and Health in
Fast Growing Economies. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability. Vol3, 461-466.
Saravanan, V.S. (2009)
‘Decentralisation and Water Resources Management’, in Conservation and Society, 7 (3): 183-199.
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