State of Health in the Districts of India

This chapter examines the state of health in 640 districts of India. Health is measured in three key domains, namely, child health, adult health and elderly health using a set of eight variables. Child health is measured using stunting, diarrhoea and under-five mortality. Adult health is measured using body mass index (BMI), moderate and severe anaemia among women aged 15–49, hypertension and diabetes among women aged 15–49 and men aged 15–54 and elderly health is measured using percentage of disability among the 60+ population. All indicators except disability and under-five mortality have been taken from NFHS 4. The disability among the elderly has been estimated from the Census of India, 2011, while that of under-five mortality has been taken from published sources. Descriptive statistics and composite index of health have been computed. Districts are ranked in a composite index of health across all 640 districts in the country as well as among all districts within respective state.