Kerala tops NITI Aayog's Healthy States ranking again, Bihar and UP emerge as worst performers. Here's the full list

Kerala has once again topped the NITI Aayog's Healthy States Ranking while Bihar and Uttar Pradesh have emerged as the worst performing states. The “Healthy States, Progressive India” report was released by NITI Aayog Vice Chairman Dr. Rajiv Kumar. 

Haryana, Jharkhand and Assam have emerged as the states which have improved the most while Chhatisgarh has seen least improvement among all states.

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The full list of rankings is as follows:

1. Kerala
2. Andhra Pradesh 
3. Maharashtra
4. Gujarat
5. Punjab
6. Himachal Pradesh 
7. Jammu and Kashmir 
8. Karnataka 
9. Tamil Nadu
10. Telangana 
11. West Bengal
12. Haryana
13. Chhatisgarh 
14. Jharkhand 
15. Assam 
16. Rajasthan 
17. Uttarakhand
18. Madhya Pradesh 
19. Odisha 
20. Bihar
21. Uttar Pradesh 

The second edition of the report was released on Tuesday which focused on measuring and highlighting the overall performance and improvement of the states over a two-year period (2016-17 and 2017-18). The report took into account the health outcomes, governance and processes, and impact of policy interventions. 

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In the previous report, Kerala, Punjab, and Tamil Nadu had ranked on top in terms of overall performance among bigger states, while Jharkhand, Jammu and Kashmir, and Uttar Pradesh were the top three ranking States in terms of annual incremental performance. Jharkhand, Jammu & Kashmir, and Uttar Pradesh had also shown the maximum gains in improvement of health outcomes from base to reference year in indicators such as Neonatal Mortality Rate (NMR), Under-five Mortality Rate (U5MR), full immunization coverage, institutional deliveries, and People Living with HIV (PLHIV) on Anti-Retroviral Therapy (ART).

Among smaller states, Mizoram had ranked first followed by Manipur on overall performance, while Manipur followed by Goa were the top-ranked States in terms of annual incremental performance. Among UTs, Lakshadweep had shown both the best overall performance as well as the highest annual incremental performance. 

It was prepared in collaboration with the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) and with technical assistance from the World Bank. The first round of the Health Index (referred to as 2017 Health Index) was released in February 2018 which measured the annual and incremental performance of the States and UTs over the period of 2014-15 (base year) to 2015-16 (reference year).