Paper short abstract:

This paper brings together perceptions related to health seeking by migrant laboring low caste urban residents from four studies undertaken by the author in Delhi and its peri-urban area over twenty-five years, and examines them with reference to the health and urban planning approaches over the years.

Paper long abstract:

A cholera outbreak in the Indian capital city of Delhi in 1988 provided the context to elicit and understand health related perceptions and behaviours of the residents of resettlement colonies of the migrant poor. These were planned colonies and therefore what was subsequently explored was how the urban planning model resulted in such a public health crisis for the poor and the approaches adopted to deal with it.

A study of migrant construction workers in Delhi and their health seeking from about the same time, with periodic revisits upto the present, provides another set of detailed perceptions of these workers belonging to the ex-untouchable low caste. Understanding of the changing perceptions about determinants of health and the patterns of treatment seeking will be highlighted. A study in 2013 of the treatment seeking by urban poor as well as middle class residents and another in the peri-urban area of Delhi, Karhera village of Ghaziabad in 2014, again provide insights into the prevailing health perceptions.

These various data sets are analysed together in this paper through the lens of dynamicity of perceptions as well as that of perceptions of empowerment and disempowerment. Extracted from these are lessons for methodological approaches to studying health seeking behaviours and perceptions, as well as messages for health planning for the city and its poor.