Source: Healthy States, Progressive India: HEALTH INDEX ROUND IV 2019-20, NITI Aayog, 2021.
Morung Express News
Dimapur | December 27
Nagaland Health Index, though improving, is the worst among 8 smaller states, informed the latest State Health Index (SHI), an annual tool to assess the performance of States and Union Territories on key health indicators, launched on December 27.
The fourth edition of SHI for 2019-20 was released jointly by NITI Aayog Vice Chairman Dr Rajiv Kumar, CEO Amitabh Kant, Additional Secretary Dr Rakesh Sarwal, and World Bank Senior Health Specialist Sheena Chhabra.
The report was developed by NITI Aayog, with technical assistance from the World Bank, and in close consultation with the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW), as per an official statement.
The SHI is a weighted composite index based on 24 indicators grouped under the domains of ‘Health Outcomes’, ‘Governance and Information’, and ‘Key Inputs/Processes’. Each domain has been assigned weights based on its importance with higher score for outcome indicators.
To ensure comparison among similar entities, the ranking is categorised as ‘Larger States’, ‘Smaller States’ and ‘Union Territories’.
Nagaland and ‘Smaller States’
As per the detailed SHI, Nagaland’s overall score was 27 out of possible 100 in the Reference Year (2019-20).
The State’s score in Base Year (2018-19) or the previous ranking was also low at 23.57. While Nagaland was ranked at bottom, Mizoram ranked at the top with a SHI of 77.75.
Three of the smaller states, i.e., Mizoram, Sikkim and Meghalaya improved their rankings from Base Year to Reference Year.
On the other hand, four states dropped their ranking and one retained its Base Year rank. While Tripura, Manipur and Arunachal Pradesh dropped their rank by one place each from Base Year to the Reference Year, Goa dropped by two positions and moved from second place to the fourth place.
The status of Nagaland remained the same i.e. eighth place.
Overall, in the Reference Year, Tripura was placed second, followed by Sikkim, Goa and Meghalaya respectively.
Nagaland led from bottom, followed by Arunachal Pradesh and Manipur to round of the eight states.
However, in terms of incremental performance between Base Year and Reference Year, Nagaland fared marginally better.
While Mizoram and Meghalaya secured first and second ranks respectively with significant postive Incremental change (18.45 &17.70 respectively) in Health Index scores from Base Year to Reference Year, it also increased slightly for Nagaland by 3.43, indicating that marginal improvement in health indices. Apart from the three states along with Tripura (0.19), the rest under ‘Smaller States’ category had negative incremental change.
‘Larger States’ and UTs
Among the 19 ‘Larger States,’ Kerala and Tamil Nadu retained the top two positions, while Telangana pipped Andhra Pradesh for the third position. Uttar Pradesh was at the bottom followed by Bihar and Madhya Pradesh.
However in terms of incremental positive change between Base and Reference year, UP showed the largest improvement (5.52), followed by Assam (4.34) and Telangana (4.22).
The health index among UTs was best in Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu, followed by Chandigarh and Lakshadweep.
While Delhi, Jammu & Kashmir and Puducherry were the bottom three, Delhi followed by J&K and Laskwadeep showed the best incremental performance among the UTs from the Base and Reference year.
