VIJAYAWADA: Andhra Pradesh stood fourth in the fourth edition of the State Health Index for 2019–20, released by NITI Aayog on Monday. Round IV of the report focuses on measuring and highlighting the overall performance and incremental improvement of states and UTs from 2018–19 to 2019–20.
The state’s rank slipped from 3rd to 4th in the overall ranking and was 10th in the incremental rankings. However, it continued to be in the front runners category. Round IV of the report focuses on measuring and highlighting the overall performance and incremental improvement of states and UTs during the two-year period.
The state recorded an incremental change of 1.07 points, which pushed it to the list of the ‘least improved’ category. Ironically, Kerala which has been ranked 1 in the overall category was also pushed into this category as its incremental change was even lower than Andhra Pradesh with 0.60 points.
Among the larger states, Andhra Pradesh along with Telangana, Maharashtra, Kerala, and Tamil Nadu showed strong Overall Performance and also registered improvements in Incremental Performance.
The conclusions from the previous three rounds of the Health Index were taken into account to develop the Health Index Round IV (2019-20).
For the fourth round of the Health Index, review of indicators was undertaken and three new indicators were added for larger states. These are maternal mortality ratio, proportion of pregnant women who received four or more antenatal care checkups, and level of registration of deaths.
The indicator relating to Community Health Centres and Sub-District Hospitals (CHCs/SDHs) with grading of four points or above was dropped and the definition of two indicators, one related to data integrity measure and second related to quality accreditation of public health facilities, was refined.
The State Health Index is an annual tool to assess the performance of states and UTs. It is a weighted composite index based on 24 indicators grouped under the domains of ‘Health Outcomes’, ‘Governance and Information’, and ‘Key Inputs/Processes’.
The Health Ministry’s decision to link the index to incentives under the National Health Mission (NHM) has been instrumental in shifting the focus from budget spends, inputs and outputs to outcomes by shining the light on states and UTs that have shown most improvement.
Based on the interim findings of the fourth round, the Ministry provided 10 per cent of the state and UTs’ total NHM funds as incentive based on agreed conditionalities.
How are states/UTs assessed?
The State Health Index is an annual tool to assess the performance of states and Union Territories. It is a weighted composite index based on 24 indicators grouped under the domains of ‘Health Outcomes’, ‘Governance and Information’, and ‘Key Inputs/Processes’. Weights have been assigned to each domain, based on its importance with higher scores for outcome indicators.