Health Ministry organised National Workshop for Population Research Centres

June 1, 2019

Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) organized a two-day orientation workshop for Population Research Centres (PRCs) to highlight various features of Health Ministry’s flagship schemes and for their concurrent monitoring.

About Population Research Centres

Background: Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) has established the network of 18 PRCs spread over 17 major States and Union Territories (UTs). The scheme started with establishment of 2 PRCs in 1958 at Delhi and Kerala. During 1999 it was and expanded to 18 PRCs with latest inclusion of PRC, Sagar. Out of these, 12 are attached to various Universities and 6 are in research institutions of national repute.
Administration: They are autonomous in nature and administratively under the control of their host University/Institutions.
Objective: PRCs were established to undertake research projects relating to demographic research and biological studies & qualitative aspect of population control, family planning. The aim of Health Ministry was to gainfully utilize feedback from these research studies and then plan or formulate strategies and policy interventions of ongoing schemes.
Mandate: Their mandate is to provide critical research based inputs related to the Health and Family Welfare programs and policies at the national and state levels.
Milestone: Since its inception to present date PRCs have completed more than 3600 research studies and have published more than 110 research papers in prestigious international journals.

Key Highlights of Workshop

Need: The workshop is important as there is an urgent need for PRCs to reinvent themselves to become more relevant and PRCs should also integrate with institute they are anchored in for more thoughtful insights of local and current issues to enrich their research.
At the event, Ms. Preeti Sudan, Secretary (HFW) released Rural Health Statistics (2017-18) and a Compendium of Studies Conducted by PRCS (2017-18).
Importance: The flagship program of Health Ministry, Ayushman Bharat has two components- Health and Wellness Centres (HWCs) for Comprehensive Primary Health Care and Pradhan Mantri Jan ArogyaYojana (PMJAY) for secondary and tertiary Health care, both seeks to deliver Health Care services closer to where people live in rural and urban areas. Thus PRCs can provide critical research based inputs to strengthen these initiatives further.