Health issues of Elderly Malayali Tribes in Yercaud Hills – A Health Oriented Sociological Analysis

Abstract

Indian tribal are a heterogeneous group; most of them remain at the lowest stratum of the society due to various factors like geographical and cultural isolation, low levels of literacy, primitive occupations, and extreme levels of poverty. At the same time the position elderly tribes are too worse than the other people. The present paper attempts to study the health issues of elderly malayali tribes in yercaud hills in Salem district. The yercaud Panchayat union is covered by 62 villages as per District census handbook Salem, 2011. Out of 62 villages 10 villages are having cent percent of Malayali tribe population. The population of above said 10 villages was 1644. Out of 1644 population, the elderly tribal population was 469, from this universe 156 respondents were selected governing systematic random sampling. So the total number of elderly tribes in this study is 156 which constitute 54 males and 102 female Malayali tribes. In this study nearly 78.20 per cent of the respondents were depend the category of agriculture business. In this research 67 percent of the respondents were belong the income category of Rs.1000 – 3000 and 94.23 per cent of the respondents have had physical problem such as asthma, heart problems, low eye power, head ache and joint, knee pain. Nearly 77 per cent of the respondents stated that they were utilized allopathic method for their physical illness. 86.5 per cent of the people were spending up to Rs.300 per month for medical treatment. Nearly 68 per cent of the respondents stated the government should concentrate on tribal people especially elderly tribal.