NITI Aayog rankings: Kerala healthiest state again; Bihar, Uttar Pradesh bring up rear

Kerala has again topped 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's vice-chairman Dr Rajiv Kumar.

Haryana, Jharkhand and Assam have improved the most on the wellness index while Chhattisgarh has seen the least betterment among all the states.

The second edition of the report released on Tuesday focuses on measuring and highlighting the overall performance and incremental improvement of the states over a two-year period (2016-17 and 2017-18).

The report takes into consideration health outcomes, governance and processes, and impact of policy interventions.

It has been prepared in collaboration with the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, with technical assistance from the World Bank.

The first round of the Health Index in 2017 was released in February 2018 which measured the annual and incremental performance of states and union territories from 2014-15 (base year) to 2015-16 (reference year).

In the previous report, Kerala, Punjab and Tamil Nadu had topped on overall performance among bigger states, while Jharkhand, Jammu and Kashmir and UP were the top three ranking states in terms of annual incremental performance.

Jharkhand, J&K and UP had also shown the maximum gains in improvement of health outcomes in indicators such as neonatal and under-five mortality rates.

Top Scorers

• Kerala
• Andhra Pradesh 
• Maharashtra
• Gujrat
• Punjab
• Himachal Pradesh 
• Jammu and Kashmir 
• Karnataka