Anthropology
Open Access

Abstract

Is Rh Factor is Behind the Moderate Life Expectancy of Uttarakhand Tribals? A Brief Review

Shafali Pawar, Mainak Chakraborty, Koel Mukherjee and Kaustav Das

Indigenous communities and tribes are diverse and distributed all over the Indian subcontinent. While tribal communities are unique, many share characteristics that can affect the ability to prepare for, respond to and cope with the impact of environment on their health, living in different ecological and geo-climatic conditions ranging from hills to plain. It is evident that, health of different tribal communities influenced by not only the environmental forces but also their varied ways of life including their socio-economic condition, nutrition, dietary habit, literacy, hygiene and sanitation, socio-religious beliefs etc. This review article purposively deals with such a health monitoring indicator- life expectancy from sample representatives of tribal groups from a specific geographical zone called Terai (interior forested mountainous region) of Uttarakhand. After analysing the data from secondary sources, it has been revealed that the life expectancy of rural Uttarakhand (71.0%) is comparatively higher than the national level (66.7%). Besides that, the findings regarding life expectancy of Uttarakhand (54.53% for Raji, Buxa, Tharu and Khasa) also corroborate with the other states of same ecological setting specifically Arunachal Pradesh (56.7%) and Jammu Kashmir (59.7%). In this regard, it has also been confirmed from different studies that the frequency of immunogenic Rh-positive antigen is significantly higher among different communities of Terai region of Uttarakhand. Therefore, it can be proposed that this higher prevalence of Rh positive may provide immunity against environmental hazards to maintain a moderate rate of life expectancy as the health of these tribal groups is the outcome of the interaction between socio-cultural practices, genetic characteristics and their environmental conditions.