Health Status of Anganwadi Workers in an Urban Area-A Cross Sectional Study

Background: Anganwadi workers have been the frontline workers providing a package of services to the children below 6 years of age, females in the reproductive age group, pregnant and lactating mothers under the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) programme. Promoting the health and socio-demographic status of this frontline force is critical to improve the delivery of services. Material and methods: The present descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted in June, 2024 among 48 Anganwadi workers working in the catchment area of urban health training center of Rajiv Gandhi Medical College, Thane. The purposive sampling technique was used to conduct the study. Socio-demographic profile and health status of the Anganwadi workers was recorded in pre-designed and pre-tested proforma by interviewing them. The data was entered in Microsoft Excel and analyzed. The results were interpreted using SE (p1-P2) test of significance. The statistical level of significance was fixed at p<0.05. Results: 48 Anganwadi workers were included in the study. 08(16.67%) subjects were in the age group of 18-40 years while 40(83.33%) were in the age group of >40-58 years. Of the 48 subjects, 38(79.17%) were having one or more health problems at the time of study (p<0.05). Of the 38(79.17%) subjects with one or more health problems, 31(81.58%) were suffering from noncommunicable diseases and 07(18.42%) were suffering from communicable diseases (p<0.05). Conclusion: Previous studies done on Anganwadi workers have focused primarily on the efficiency of service delivery. This study focuses on their socio-demographic and health issues. We observed, majority of the Anganwadi workers were suffering from non-communicable diseases.