Health status and inter-state health disparity in rural India

This paper has examined disparities in human health across Indian states using secondary data collected from the NITI Ayog and National Family Health Surveys during 2005–06 and 2015–16. The key results show an improvement in the health status. Yet, majority of indicators of health such as maternal mortality rate, proportion of births attended by skilled health personnel, infant mortality rate, under-five mortality rate, men who have comprehensive knowledge of HIV/AIDS, men and women who use any kind of tobacco, and alcohol, households with any usual member covered by a health scheme or health insurance, households with improved sanitation facility and clean fuel for cooking and percentage of children fully immunized of age 12–23 months, show high inter-state disparity.