NITI Aayog health index rates Kerala at top, UP at bottom

NEW DELHI: Niti Aayog’s state-wise healthcare rankings demonstrate Kerala as the healthiest state while Uttar Pradesh stood at the bottom. Kerala had an overall score of 74.01.

The health index examines complete performance and incremental improvement in the States and the Union Territories for the period with 2015-16 as the base year and 2017-18 as the reference year.

Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar have shown no improvement in health status, though some states has shown some improvement such as Rajasthan.

As per the report, “In Bihar, the deterioration between, base year of 2015-16 and reference year of 2017-18 was primarily due to the performance related to total fertility rate, low birth weight, sex ratio at birth, tuberculosis (TB) treatment success rate, quality accreditation of public health facilities, and time-taken for National Health Mission fund transfer.”

Only 56 per cent of mothers deliver babies in health facilities in Bihar, which is poorer than the national average. In addition, Bihar is in red because more low weight babies are being born as compared to 2015-16.

Odisha’s Health Index worsened due to the immunisation rate and success rate of TB treatment. 

Tamil Nadu dropped from third position to ninth position while Punjab dropped from second position to the fifth. Andhra Pradesh stood second and Maharashtra third. 

In the health index, Andhra secured 65.13 points, with an increase of 4.97 points from base year (2015-16) to the reference year (2017-18). Earlier in 2015-16, the State stood at eighth place in the overall performance with 60.16 points.

The report has also compared health results of Kerala to that of Argentina or Brazil, with neo-natal mortality rate (NMR) which is the probability of a baby dying in first 28 days of birth, being as low as six per 1,000 live births. NMR in Odisha, which stands at as high as 32 per 1,000 live births is close to that of Sierra Leone.