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Abhay and Rani Bang | |
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| Born | |
| Alma mater | Government Medical College and Hospital, Nagpur (MBBS, MD) Johns Hopkins University (MPH) |
| Occupation | Social activists |
| Known for | Social work, community health, addiction recovery, home based newborn care |
| Children | Anand Bang (elder), Amrut Bang (younger) |
| Awards |
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| Honors | Padma Shri |
Abhay Bang andRani Bang areIndian activists andcommunity health researchers who work in theGadchiroli district ofMaharashtra, India.
They have developed initiatives and programs aimed at reducinginfant mortality rates. Their initiatives have been endorsed by theWorld Health Organization (WHO) and theUnited Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) for work carried out acrossIndia and in parts ofAfrica.[1][2] Abhay and Rani Bang have also founded the non-profit Society for Education, Action, and Research in Community Health (SEARCH), which is involved in rural health service and research.[citation needed]
Abhay and Rani Bang won theMaharashtra Bhushan Award,[3] and have been awardedhonorary doctorates from theSanjay Gandhi Postgraduate Institute of Medical Sciences at Lucknow.[4]
SNDT Women's University inMumbai has also awarded a doctoratehonoris causa to Rani Bang.[5] Medical journalThe Lancet described the couple as "The pioneers of health care in rural India."[6] In 2016, Abhay and Rani Bang were recipients of the Distinguished Alumni Award from the Department of International Health at theJohns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.[7][8] They were also inducted into the Johns Hopkins Society of Scholars[9] for their leadership in community-based health care focusing on newborns and children. The Bangs have contributed to the development of community-based primaryhealth care in India.[10]
Abhay Bang was born in 1950 inWardha,Maharashtra,India, to Thakurdas Bang and Suman Bang, both adherents of theSarvodaya movement inspired byMahatma Gandhi.[11] His father, Thakurdas, a young economist, had initially planned to pursue doctoral studies in theUnited States but, followingGandhi’s counsel to study the lives of India's rural poor instead, chose to remain in India to focus on the economics of village life.[11]
Abhay spent his formative years at Gandhi'sSevagram Ashram in Wardha, in the company of prominent Gandhian leaders, includingAcharya Vinoba Bhave. He received his early education at a school based on the principles ofNai Talim, Gandhi's model of practical, experiential learning.
At the age of 13, after conversations with his elder brother Ashok, Abhay would go on to spend his life focused on improving the health and well-being of India's rural communities.
Rani Bang (née Chari) was born inChandrapur in 1951.[citation needed] She came from a family with roots in medical and public services, being the daughter of a doctor and the granddaughter of a prominentMember of Parliament (MP) affiliated withIndian National Congress (INC).[12]
Abhay and Rani studied together atNagpur University, a public university located inNagpur, Maharashtra, and completed theirBachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery (M.B.B.S.) in 1972. They remained at Nagpur University to complete theirDoctor of Medicine (M.D.) in 1977 and 1976 respectively.[13]
After getting married in 1977, the couple received aMasters in Public Health fromJohns Hopkins University inBaltimore, United States, in 1984. Following Gandhian principles, they returned to India to work for the poor.[14]
After completing their Masters atJohns Hopkins University, the couple returned toIndia to work in ruralMaharashtra. In 1981, Abhay Bang published a critique of the state's minimum fixed wages for agricultural labor inWardha district; the government later revised the wages.[15]
In 1985, Abhay and Rani founded two NGOs: the Chetna Vikas organization[16] and the Society for Education, Action and Research in Community Health (SEARCH) and started working on community health problems in the tribal and rural areas of Gadchiroli.[17] SEARCH established a partnership with communities inGadchiroli for health and development and helped create "tribal-friendly" clinics and a hospital in the district.
When the couple began organizing People's Health Assemblies, they discovered that addressinginfant mortality was a pressing need, particularly after the death of a one-month-old child within minutes of being presented to them. They identified 18 possible causes of such an infant's death, includingpoverty,diarrhea,infection,pneumonia, orlack of a hospital.[18] The Bangs and their colleagues at SEARCH conducted research on practical approaches to reducing young child mortality in resource-constrained settings. Abhay Bang's solution was to train the village women inneonatal care.[1] He wrote a draft of the action research to be conducted and sought feedback from his mentor,Carl E. Taylor, the founder of the Department of International Health atJohns Hopkins University. In a handwritten note on the draft, Taylor wrote, "Abhay, this will be the most important work that you will ever do in your life".[19] Subsequent work by Abhay Bang and his colleagues, particularly in two of the most notable of their studies demonstrated the feasibility and effectiveness of community-based management of childhood pneumonia and the provision of home-based neonatal care bycommunity health workers.[citation needed]
The Home BasedNeonatal Care (HBNC) model developed by Bang has resulted in a reduction in infant mortality in the study villages of Gadchiroli.[20] The home-based neonatal care interventions developed at SEARCH ignited worldwide interest and research on preventing neonatal deaths in high-mortality, resource-constrained settings. Today, based on Bang's Gadchiroli model, over 800,000 village women in India have been trained by the government under theASHA program.[21][22]
India has incorporated this model in their 12th national five-year plan to reduce infant mortality.[citation needed] This approach, which brought down the infant mortality rate in rural Gadchiroli from 121 per 1,000 live births to 30, was honored byTheLancet in 2005 as one of the Vintage Papers.[6] This approach was incorporated in the national program by the Government of India and was accepted by theWHO,UNICEF andUSAID for reducing newborn mortality in developing countries.[23][22]
In May 2017, theHigh Court of Bombay invited Abhay Bang to provide suggestions about how to reduce child mortality and malnutrition in the state of Maharashtra. The High Court accepted the suggestions made by Abhay Bang and directed the state government to incorporate the recommendations in its policy decisions and take appropriate actions.[24]
Abhay and Rani Bang were the driving force for the liquor ban in Gadchiroli district. Gadchiroli is the first district in Maharashtra where liquor has been banned due to public demand. The Bangs initiated a liquor ban campaign in 1990 by informing residents about the negative healtheffects of alcohol consumption. The movement resulted in liquor ban in the district in 1992, being the first example in India of liquor ban due to public demand.[clarification needed]
In May 2012, Abhay Bang was a member of a panel to study a possible liquor ban inChandrapur district.[25] He advocates the need for analcohol- andtobacco-free society since, per the 2015Global Burden of Diseases, alcohol and tobacco are two of the top ten causes of death and disease in India. Abhay Bang is developing a multi-pronged approach namedMuktipath in the district of Gadchiroli to reduce the prevalence ofalcohol and tobacco consumption there.[26] He also welcomed theSupreme Court of India's ban on liquor shops on state and national highways.[27]
Rani Bang has worked extensively on women's medical issues. The community based study ofgynecological problems in rural areas that she conducted in 1988 is the first study in the world focusing on women's health beyond maternity care. Rani Bang first brought to the notice of the world that rural women had a large hidden burden ofgynecological diseases. She worked on training the Dais (traditionaldoulas') in villages to become village level community health workers. She advocated the need for a comprehensive reproductive health care package for rural women in India.[28]
She has written a book,Putting Women First: Women and Health in a Rural Community, which sheds light on women's issues in rural India. Their research showed that nearly 92 percent of women had some kind of gynecological condition.[14]
Rani Bang was one of the principal speakers in the Tietze symposium inRio de Janeiro, Brazil in 1990. She served as a consultant to the International Clinical Epidemiology Network (INCLEN) for Reproductive health, International Women's Health Advocates on Microbiologist (IWHAM)'s 10th Five Year Plan Maharashtra Health and Nutrition Committee Member. She was nominated for theNobel Peace Prize in 2003 as a member of 1,000 women worldwide for peace prize.[5]
Rani Bang has worked on women'sreproductive health issues,sexually transmitted diseases,AIDS control,alcoholism, tribal health, and adolescentsexual health.[citation needed] She conductssex education sessions calledTarunyabhaan for adolescents and teenagers across Maharashtra.[29]
In 2008, Rani Bang received the National Award for Women's Development through Application of Science & Technology in recognition of her outstanding and pioneering contribution over two and a half decades to improving women's health in rural India through an innovative, people-centered research approach. The award was presented to her by the President of India at the National Conference on Showcasing Cutting- Edge Science & Technology by Women in New Delhi.[28]
Abhay and Rani Bang have worked with the tribal communities in the forest area ofGadchiroli district inMaharashtra since 1986. They identifiedmalaria as the biggest health concern for this population. They sought to increase awareness around usinginsecticide-treated mosquito nets as a preventative measure alongside regular medical treatment among the localAdivasi.
They also run a mobile medical unit in the 48 tribal villages in theDhanora block ofGadchiroli district and a network of village volunteers trained in providing primary care in these villages. In July 2017, theGovernment of Maharashtra formed a task force to control the spread of malaria in the district of Gadchiroli. Abhay Bang was appointed as the head of this task force which comprises the nonprofit SEARCH,Tata Trusts, National Institute of Research and Tribal Health (NIRTH) and theGovernment of Maharashtra.[30]
Abhay Bang is currently chairing a 13-member expert committee set up byUnion Health Ministry and theMinistry of Tribal Affairs, tasked with coming out with a nationwide status report on tribal health issues, along with suggesting possible policy formulations. While the "old" problems of malaria, malnutrition, and mortality persist, Abhay Bang emphasizes "new" health issues among the Adivasi, partly caused by outside socio-cultural influences and market forces. Tribal women now list alcohol addiction and tobacco addiction among men as their biggest concern, with over 60 percent of adults in Gadchiroli consuming the latter daily. Combined with an increase in sodium consumption,hypertension rates have been increasing in these communities, according to Bang.
Started in 2006, NIRMAN brings together a group of youth aged between 18 and 28 years who are looking to give meaning to their lives. Abhay and Rani Bang's younger son, Amrut currently manages it.[31]
NIRMAN looks at identifying and nurturing young social change-makers in Maharashtra. It is an educational process to train the youth to take up crucial issues and problems in the society. It provides guidance, expertise, and an environment to inculcate self-learning and encourages youth for social action. NIRMAN includes a series of 3 camps, each separated by 6 months. A group of NIRMAN participants will go through 3 camps in a period of one year. A camp generally runs for 7–10 days at SEARCH, Gadchiroli with a view encourage young Indian students to step out of their generally secure urban surroundings into the world of rural and tribal Indians to help them come face to face with the nation's plethora of social issues, and with people working hard to solve them.
NIRMAN is a learning process based onNai Talim way of education introduced by Mahatma Gandhi. It believes inproblem-based learning instead of classroom-based learning.[32] This initiative is providing a common platform for youth to engage, self-educate and decide on how they can make a difference to the society.
Abhay thinks that it is important to make the present generation of doctors think about social challenges. "All doctors can earn enough to make a decent living and they must think about the purpose of their lives. Change will happen the moment they start contemplating." He believes that medical students should regularly be given rural or tribal stints as part of their curriculum so that they are exposed to the real challenges. He thinks that it is equally important to reward doctors who shun the charm of corporate world to serve the real people in need.[33]
Abhay and Rani Bang and their team at SEARCH work onnon-communicable diseases, as those are emerging as a priority area. A study conducted by SEARCH in 86 villages of Gadchiroli district has shown that rural people fall prey to lifestyle diseases likestroke which emerged as the most frequent cause of death.[citation needed] One in seven (14%) deaths in these villages occurs due to stroke, showing that the places like Gadchiroli are now passing through an 'epidemiological transition'. 87.3% stroke deaths occurred at home, indicating that rural people do not approach hospitals for treatment. Taking the study ahead, the SEARCH team now plans to test village-based solutions to minimize deaths caused due to stroke in Gadchiroli villages in collaboration with the UK'sWellcome Trust and theDepartment of Biotechnology of the Government of India. Yogeshwar Kalkonde – Neurologist and Senior Research Officer at SEARCH – is the main author of the study. The team also included three young MBBS doctors from NIRMAN. The study was published in July 2015 inStroke, an international journal published by the American Stroke and Heart Association[34], and was presented at the 5th International Conference on Neurology and Epidemiology, held between 18 and 20 November 2015 inAustralia.[35]
In a study published inEconomic and Political Weekly, Bang and SEARCH team members showed that the rural and tribal district of Gadchiroli was spending approximately₹73.4crore annually on consuming tobacco and related products.[36] More than 50% of the population was consuming tobacco. SEARCH has been conducting programs to spread awareness regarding the ill effects of tobacco use and providingde-addiction services. The Maharashtra state government has formed a 12-member task force under chief ministerDevendra Fadnavis for creating awareness about ill effects of using tobacco products and Abhay Bang is an advisor in the force. It will concentrate on Gadchiroli district for the first three years (2015–2018). A committee has also been constituted under the GadchiroliDistrict Collector for implementing the plans devised by the task force. A representative of Bang's organization SEARCH will be a member of the committee. According to Bang, spread of information and awareness for prevention, initiation of village committees and urban ward committees, implementation of laws and regulations, treatment for de-addiction, counseling via NGOs and stimulation of an alcohol and tobacco free environment in government offices, schools, colleges, markets etc., will be the methods used by the task force.[37]
Abhay Bang and Rani Bang, through their organization SEARCH, built the Maa Danteshwari Hospital for the rural and tribal people of Gadchiroli. Along withOPD andIPD care, a variety of surgeries are also conducted in this setup. Doctors from throughout the state of Maharashtra come and operate in this setup. Shekhar Bhojraj, aspine surgeon from Mumbai, and his team of 6-8 other spine surgeons have been associated with SEARCH for more than 10 years and have conducted more than 100 spine surgeries in Gadchiroli.[citation needed] In August 2016, when Rani Bang was to undergospinal surgery herself, she too was operated in the SEARCH hospital by Shekhar Bhojraj and his wife Shilpa, an anesthetist in Mumbai.[38]
Apart from being the founder-directors of SEARCH, Abhay and Rani Bang have served on various national and state level committees. Some of them are as follows:
In *माझा साक्षात्कारी हृदयरोग Majha Sakshatkari Hridayarog, Abhay Bang has written about his own experiences during hisheart disease and the learning he has gained from it. The book won the Kelkar Award for the Best Literary Book in Marathi, 2000.
Rani Bang'sगोईण (Goin) describes the relationship of tribal women with various trees in Gadchiroli district. It won the Literary Award of the Government of Maharashtra.Goin meansFriend in theGondi language of tribal people. Her bookकानोसा (Kanosa) delves into the perceptions ofrural women regarding various issues ofreproductive health.
Abhay and Rani Bang and their organization SEARCH have collectively received the following awards and honors, in chronological order:
Abhay Bang | |
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| Rani Bang | |
