Questions regarding medication-related issues raised by legislators in the Indian parliament, 2017-2024

Legislators' questions in parliament serve as a crucial oversight mechanism, providing insights into prevalent health problems. This study analyzes questions asked by Indian members of parliament (MPs) regarding medications, including generic medicines and drug pricing, directed to the Health and Family Welfare Ministry from January 2017 to February 2024.

Health-related questions raised by Indian MPs were extracted from the digital repository of the parliament. Medication-related questions were identified by keyword search using R statistical software (v4.1.2; R Core Team 2021) and manually confirmed. Each question/set of questions asked were converted to one sentence summaries using Microsoft Copilot (2025), and categorized into themes. Drugs, diseases, gender, and age groups addressed in each question were identified.

A total of 1121 medication-related questions were asked, constituting 19.42% of all health-related questions. Themes included cancer treatment, drug regulation, general health issues, health infrastructure, infectious diseases, maternal and child health, non-communicable diseases, and vaccination. COVID-19-related questions were prominent, followed by antimicrobials and haematinics. Post-COVID years saw increased questions on cancer chemotherapy and health infrastructure. Health delivery and drug regulation questions were consistently raised.

Our study revealed an active dialog between legislators and the health ministry to address the population's medication needs. The findings demonstrate that legislators are responsive to the changing disease patterns and challenges in treatment delivery. While our study examined medication-related questions in general, future research can focus on questions about specific drug groups or health issues to better understand the legislative influence on healthcare.