NITI Aayog’s Annual Health Index

Why in news?

• Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Telangana emerged as the top performers among the ‘larger states’ in the NITI Aayog’s annual ‘health index’ for the Covid year of 2020-21.
• Kerala has topped fourth year in a row.

About NITI Aayog’s Annual Health Index:

• In 2017, NITI Aayog in collaboration with the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) and the World Bank initiated an annual Health Index for tracking Overall Performance and Incremental Performance across all states and Union Territories (UTs).

Objective:

• The objective of the Annual Health Index is to track and rank progress on health outcomes and health systems performance, develop healthy competition and encourage cross learning among states and UTs.

Parameters:

• The health index assesses states and UTs on two parameters:
  • Incremental performance (year-on-year progress)
  • Overall performance.

Categories:

• The ranking is done under three categories: larger states, smaller states and Union territories (UTs) to ensure comparison among similar entities.

Composition:

• The Health Index is a composite score that reflects the achievements and incremental improvements of the states and UTs on 24 indicators across three domains: health outcomes, governance and information, and key inputs and processes.
• Each domain has been assigned weight based on its importance with a higher score for outcome indicators.
• The ‘health outcomes’ include indicators like neonatal mortality rate, total fertility rate, sex ratio at birth, immunization coverage, proportion of institutional deliveries, total case notification rate of tuberculosis, and proportion of people living with HIV on antiretroviral therapy.
• The ‘governance and information’ domain includes indicators like proportion of institutional deliveries, average occupancy (in months) of three key posts at state level, average occupancy (in months) of the chief medical officer, and days taken for fund transfer.
• The ‘key inputs/ processes’ is a measure of health infrastructure available, including the proportion of functional 24X7 primary healthcare centers, districts with functional cardiac care units, and vacancies in healthcare provider positions.

PRACTICE QUESTION:

Which of the following statements is/are correct regarding ‘NITI Aayog Health Index’?

1. It is prepared in collaboration with the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare with technical assistance from the World Bank.

2. Gujarat has topped the index for the five consecutive years

Choose the correct answer using the codes given below:

(a) 1 only

(b) 2 only

(c) Both 1 and 2

(d) Neither 1 nor 2

Answer