Fourth Edition of State Health Index | 28 Dec 2021

For Prelims: About the Index, Ranking of States.

For Mains: Challenges of the Health Sector in India and Initiatives taken to address it

Why in News

NITI Aayog has released the fourth edition of the State Health Index for 2019–20.

  • The report, titled “Healthy States, Progressive India”, ranks states and Union Territories on their year-on-year incremental performance in health outcomes as well as their overall status.
  • Earlier, the Global Health Security (GHS) Index 2021, developed in partnership by the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) and the Johns Hopkins Center was released. India, with a score of 42.8 (out of 100) has slipped by 0.8 points since 2019.

Key Points

  • About:
    • The State Health Index is an annual tool to assess the performance of states and UTs, which has been compiled and published since 2017.
    • It is a weighted composite index based on 24 indicators grouped under the domains of ‘Health Outcomes’, ‘Governance and Information’, and ‘Key Inputs/Processes’.
      • Health Outcomes:
        • It includes parameters such as neonatal mortality rate, under-5 mortality rate, sex ratio at birth.
      • Governance and Information:
        • It includes parameters such as institutional deliveries, average occupancy of senior officers in key posts earmarked for health.
      • Key Inputs/Processes:
        • It consists of proportion of shortfall in health care providers to what is recommended, functional medical facilities, birth and death registration and tuberculosis treatment success rate.
  • Developed By:
    • NITI Aayog, with technical assistance from the World Bank, and in close consultation with the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW).
  • Focus of the Fourth Edition:
    • Round IV of the report focuses on measuring and highlighting the overall performance and incremental improvement of states and UTs over the period 2018–19 to 2019–20.
  • Ranking of States:
    • To ensure comparison among similar entities, the ranking is categorized as:
      • Larger States:
        • In terms of annual incremental performance, Uttar Pradesh, Assam and Telangana are the top three ranking states.
      • Smaller States:
        • Mizoram and Meghalaya registered the maximum annual incremental progress.
      • Union Territories:
        • Delhi, followed by Jammu and Kashmir, showed the best incremental performance.
      • Overall:
        • The top-ranking states were Kerala and Tamil Nadu among the ‘Larger States’, Mizoram and Tripura among the ‘Smaller States’, and Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu (DH&DD) and Chandigarh among the UTs.

  • Significance of the Index:
    • Policymaking:
      • States use it in their policy making and resource allocation.
        • This report is an example of both competitive and cooperative federalism.
    • Healthy Competition:
      • The index encourages healthy competition and cross-learning among States and UTs.
      • The aim is to nudge states/UTs towards building robust health systems and improving service delivery.
    • Helpful in Achieving SDGs:
    • Role in National Health Mission:
      • The importance of this annual tool is reemphasized by MoHFW’s decision to link the index to incentives under the National Health Mission.
  • Limitations of the Index:
    • Not Covered Critical Areas:
      • Some critical areas such as infectious diseases, noncommunicable diseases (NCDs), mental health, governance, and financial risk protection are not fully captured in the Health Index due to non-availability of acceptable quality of data on an annual basis.
    • Limited Data:
      • For several indicators, the data is limited to service delivery in public facilities due to paucity and uneven availability of private sector data on health services.
    • Without any Field Verification:

Related Initiatives

Source: PIB