Kerala retains top position in NITI Aayog's health index, but makes no improvement; Bihar, Uttar Pradesh among worst performers

Kerala has emerged as the top ranking state in terms of overall health performance, while Uttar Pradesh and Bihar were ranked the two worst performers, respectively, according to the second health index launched by government think tank NITI Aayog on Tuesday. Bihar has been in the news for the encephalitis outbreak which has killed over 150 children, according to official figures, till 24 June. [caption id=“attachment_4027755” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Representational image. Reuters[/caption] Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra have emerged as the second and third best performers, respectively, on health parameters. According to the NITI Aayog report, titled ‘Healthy States Progressive India’, while India has made significant improvements in health, there is huge disparity in overall performances or health index of states. The report ranked states and Union Territories (UTs) based on the Health Index, which is a composite score incorporating 23 indicators covering key aspects of health sector performance. Among the larger states (states were divided into three groups — larger states, smaller states and UTs), 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 championed 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. The report also highlighted that Bihar was ranked at the bottom in terms of improvement in health, registering a negative (-6.35) change in its health index. The NITI Aayog had released the first round of the health index in 2018, which measured the annual and incremental performances of states and UTs for period 2014-15 (base year) to 2015-16 (reference year). In the first report, Kerala, Punjab, and Tamil Nadu had ranked on top in terms of overall performance among bigger states, while Jharkhand, Jammu and Kashmir, and Uttar Pradesh were the top three ranking States in terms of annual incremental performance. In the 2019 report, in terms of incremental performances, Haryana, Rajasthan, and Jharkhand made the maximum improvement in terms of health among larger states, whereas among the smaller states, Mizoram ranked first in overall performance, while Tripura and Manipur were top two states in terms of incremental performance. Among the UTs, Chandigarh ranked first in overall performance, while Dadra and Nagar Haveli made the most improvement. West Bengal didn’t submit data on the portal. The report has been prepared in collaboration with the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare with technical assistance from the World Bank. With inputs from PTI