In the Multidimensional Poverty Index, health is partly measured by a single question: has a child in the household died? While child mortality is a grave marker of deprivation, by equating health deprivation with mortality it reduces health to survival alone and overlooks the many conditions shaped by access, care, gender, caste and other social determinants, all of which impact ways people live with illness.

In a time when diabetes, hypertension, cancer, and chronic disability are increasingly common, this narrow lens fails to capture everyday suffering. The MPI does not ask whether families can reach healthcare, afford treatment, or are pushed into debt by illness. By ignoring access, quality, and financial burden, it risks making widespread ill-health and healthcare inequities invisible in the data.