Niti Ayog releases its health index scores for 2019, Kerala remains at the top, UP at the bottom
Kerala topped the Niti Ayog Health Index while Uttar Pradesh remained at the bottom. There were large disparities among states in their performance on health indicators.
Among the Larger States, the overall Health Index score of the best-performing State is more than two and half times of the overall score of the least-performing State. Kerala topped the Larger States with an overall score of 74.01, while Uttar Pradesh was the least performing State with an overall score of 28.61. Among the Smaller States, scores varied between 38.51 in Nagaland and 74.97 in Mizoram. Among the UTs, the scores varied between 41.66 in Daman and Diu to 63.62 in Chandigarh.
To motivate States to improve population health and reduce disparities in the spirit of cooperative and competitive federalism, the National Institution for Transforming India (NITI) Aayog launched the Health Index to measure the performance of States and UTs. In February 2018, the first round of the Health Index (referred to as Health Index-2017) was released.
Haryana, Rajasthan and Jharkhand are the top three large States in terms of incremental performance, while Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, and Maharashtra are the top three States in terms of overall performance
“The Health Index highlights the progress reached by the individual States and UTs and is an important instrument in understanding the variations and complexity of the nation’s performance in health. It highlights the areas each State should focus on to facilitate improvement in overall health outcomes. The lessons learned in the first and second rounds of Health Index will guide us in making further improvement of the Health Index in the coming years,” said Niti Ayog CEO Amitabh Kant.
States vary in progress towards achieving Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). Several States have made good progress towards achieving SDG goals included in the Index. Kerala and Tamil Nadu have already reached the 2030 SDG target for NMR, which is 12 neonatal deaths per 1,000 live births. Maharashtra and Punjab are also close to achieving the target. Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra and Punjab have already achieved the SDG target related to Under-Five Mortality Rate (U5MR), which is 25 deaths per 1,000 live births. Other States and UTs still need significant improvements to meet SDG targets.
Haryana, Rajasthan and Jharkhand are the top three large States in terms of incremental performance, while Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, and Maharashtra are the top three States in terms of overall performance. In terms of incremental performance in Index scores from Base Year to Reference Year, the top three ranked States in the group of Larger States are Haryana (up 6.55 points), Rajasthan (up 6.30 points) and Jharkhand (up 5.99 points). However, in terms of overall performance, these States are among the bottom two-third of the range of Index scores, with Kerala (74.01), Andhra Pradesh (65.13) and Maharashtra (63.99) showing the highest scores. Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra are the only two States that are among the top one-third States on both overall performance as well as incremental performance.
