National News

Child Survival and Health Index 2024

December 28 , 2024 12 hrs 0 min 84 0

A team of Indian researchers have built a Child Survival and Health Index (CSHI) for the Indian States and Union Territories by using the data from the National Family Health Survey.
The composite CSHI provides a platform to evaluate the performance of India and its various States, both retrospectively, and in the future.
11 major indicators as representing the child survival and health:
- 3 from population and household profile,
- 1 each from infant/child mortality rates, maternal care, delivery care, child vaccination and anaemia among children and
- 3 from child feeding practices and nutritional status of children.
Equal weightage was assigned to each parameter to enable comparisons.
Their evaluation showed India’s CSHI value increased from 0.49 to 0.52. in 4 years, pushing it into a better performer category.
But if the current trend continues, India needs about 30 years to increase its CSHI value to 0.75 and reach the top slot.
Out of 35 regions, 5 - Lakshadweep, Puducherry, Kerala and Andaman & Nicobar Islands - were classified as best-performing.
25 regions were ranked as good-performing, and 5 as low-performing.