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Air pollution in households is a prime contributor to health issues in developing countries, as in the case of India. According to the latest National Family Health Survey Report 2022, more than half of India's rural population and 41 per cent overall still depend on solid or unclean fuel combustions, which may reflect in future health hazards. Thus, it is crucial to understand the issue empirically. To that end, the study traces the transitional pattern of unclean cooking fuel users towards clean fuel over the last 30 years using responses from all five National Family Health Survey rounds. Further, the study uses an adjusted probit model to analyse the determinants that lead to the choice of cooking fuel in a household and a logistic model to examine the association between the choice made and the respiratory health of children under five. The empirical results show that the number of households using unclean fuel has declined over the years, with a slightly higher decline in the last five years. Moreover, it also shows that poverty status and place of residence significantly influence cooking fuel choice. Additionally, children residing in households that use clean fuels are less likely to suffer respiratory infections. In conclusion, the present study provides strong evidence to ameliorate the existing policies in a way that exhorts clean energy use. The authors propose pro-poor, pro-rural policies to expedite the clean energy transition, benefitting the most vulnerable households.

Health-seeking behavior represents the actions taken to prevent the disease and promote health. It emphasizes both the illness response and the healthcare utilization driven by perceived threat and effectiveness of the preventive behavior. This study aims to scrutinize the progression of research conducted on health-seeking behavior in high-risk period such as COVID-19 using bibliometric analysis. The bibliometric analysis is performed on Scopus and Web of Science databases. Research articles in the English language were extracted using keywords, such as health-seeking behavior and COVID. Eight hundred twenty-five research articles at the final and early publication stage in the English language were extracted from Scopus and 623 from WoS using the keywords Health Seeking Behavior and COVID. Of these, 259 in Scopus and 109 in WoS were selected for the final study following the authors' eligibility criteria. It analyses the research directions, countries of publications, core journals, leading authors and institutions and important publications followed by research trends in this field. It summarizes the academic interest of the researchers in health-seeking behavior in low- and middle-income countries. The paper informs and directs researchers and policymakers on the state of research in health-seeking behavior during high-health risk periods.

Background: The out-of-pocket expenditure (OOPE) on health care in India is more than two-third as per the recent estimates and is catastrophic. Literature identifies different factors, but little attention has been given to social network or social relationships as an essential factor in dealing with OOPE on health care., Objectives: This paper targets to find the link or association between social network and OOPE on health care through access to information., Methods: The paper uses India Human Development Survey (2011-12). Among the standard methods of impact evaluation, the Propensity Score Matching (PSM) method is identified as the best fit to explain the role of social network on health care outcomes. Social network is considered as the treatment variable. The independent variables include age, sex, education, place of residence, household expenditure per capita and information index. The paper also applies Principal Component Analysis method to estimate information index with equal weight using variables such as newspapers, mobile phones, and Internet facilities., Results: PSM result shows that direct social network reduces OOPE on health care by ₹1417 in a year. In balancing test, we see that for each of the covariate, the bias is actually reduced by applying PSM. The Information index has a positive relationship with both direct and indirect social network., Conclusion: The paper suggests policy-based interventions to enrich the social relationships and spread of information, in order to curtail the rising OOPE on health care in India., (© 2022 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)

Health insurance has been accepted as one of the channels that can serve the purpose of universalisation of health care and especially useful in the period of health crisis. This is the emerging and challenging sector in India. The present study explores the health insurance penetration in India using the latest two rounds of nationally representative datasets of the National Family Health Survey (2005-06 and 2015-16). This study identifies the covariates of households' participation and their choice for different health insurance schemes, using the average marginal effects of binary and multinomial logit regression models with conditional categories after checking their Kernel density function. The results suggest that health insurance in India is more skewed towards the households belonging to higher wealth quintile and in the front runner states. Age, occupation and education level are also positively associated with health insurance enrolment. The variable 'weighted information index', which is estimated through Principal Component Analysis, is a significant determinant of private health insurance and community-based health insurance, and this also caters to the richer households. The study also identifies several shortcomings of not accessing health insurance, their choices and suggests reforms with the goal of universalization of healthcare. The robustness check has been performed using 20 percent, 50 percent and 80 percent sub-sampling of the models., (© 2021 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)