State Health Index – UPSC Prelims

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State Health Index:
  • Developed by: NITI Aayog in collaboration with the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare and the World Bank since 2017.
  • Objective: To track progress on health outcomes and health systems performance, develop healthy competition and encourage cross-learning among states and UTs.
  • Indicators: The index is a weighted composite score incorporating 24 indicators covering key aspects of health performance. The indicators are categorised into three domains:
    • Health Outcomes: It includes parameters such as neonatal mortality rate, under-5 mortality rate, the 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 the proportion of shortfall in health care providers to what is recommended, functional medical facilities, birth and death registration and tuberculosis treatment success rate.
  • Categorization: 
    • The states are classified into three categories (Larger States, Smaller States and UTs).
    • In this round, all the states and UTs participated except West Bengal, and the UT of Ladakh was not included due to the non-availability of data.
  • Base Year: The index has been calculated as a weighted average of all the indicators in each state and union territory for a base year(2018-19) and a reference year (2019-20).
  • Source of Data: The index uses existing data sources such as the Sample Registration System, Civil Registration System and Health Management Information Systems. However, the index does not incorporate the impact of Covid-19.
  • Significance of this index: The index will help drive state/UT’s efforts towards achievement of health-related Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) including those related to Universal Health Coverage (UHC) and other health outcomes.
Key findings of the index:
  • Among the larger states, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Telangana emerged among the best three performers in terms of overall performance.
  • Uttar Pradesh ranked at the bottom in Overall Performance. However, it ranked at the top in terms of Incremental Performance by registering the highest incremental change from the Base Year.
  • Among the Smaller States, Mizoram emerged as the best performer in Overall Performance as well as Incremental Performance.
  • Among UTs, Delhi followed by Jammu and Kashmir showed the best incremental performance.

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