Socio-cultural, demographic and health aspect of the Bodo tribals: A study on women

Abstract

Livelihood of Bodo tribal depends mainly on agriculture and allied activities. In general a tribal society has some salient features in its socio economic spheres. The Bodos too have some unique socio-economic features, which might be responsible for their demographic behaviour. This study was taken up to focus at tribal farm women’s role in different socio cultural aspect and their health status. According to Bhasin, 2007, when primary and secondary subsistence activities are counted, women work more than men. During the study it was observed that amongst younger respondents 32, 13 and 22 pc suffered from back, shoulder and body pain of mild intensity respectively. Similarly, amongst elderly respondents, 80, 33, 60 and 30 pc suffered from back, shoulder, knee and over all body pain of mild to moderate intensity respectively. The ‘r’ values indicated that back pain had shown highly significant association with BMI in women of both the age groups. Similarly, knee pain and shoulder pain in elderly respondents showed highly significant association with BMI and was non-significant in younger age group. In the present study, 47.6 and 26.4 pc of younger and elderly respondents respectively belonged Ectomorphic body type.