‘India performing abysmally low’

The first global analysis assessing countries on Sustainable Development Goal (SDGs) health performance had found India performing abysmally low, ranking 143rd out of 188 countries for health related SDG performance. Ironically, India has performed even below countries like Comoros and Ghana. Even the US has been found to be performing poorly among the high-income countries ranking 28, just above Estonia and New Zealand, while the UK ranks 5 in the world. Interestingly, Iceland has come out as a winner, ranking 1st out of 188 countries for health-related SDG performance.

According to the analysis that measured progress for 188 countries between 1990 and 2015, many countries face substantial challenges for new indicators on childhood overweight, alcohol consumption and intimate partner violence. However, the good news is worldwide, good progress has been made towards some of the health SDGs since 2000, particularly in reducing under-5 and neonatal mortality, family planning and the rollout of universal health care.

“There have been only minimal improvements in hepatitis B incidence rates, while childhood overweight, intimate partner violence and harmful alcohol consumption have worsened,” states the new estimates published in the Lancet that mark the end of the MDG-era and provide the first independent analysis of performance on health-related SDGs.

Significantly, in 2015, the health-related SDG index was highest in Iceland, Singapore, and Sweden, with the UK ranking in 5th place just ahead of Finland. The Central African Republic, Somalia and South Sudan had the lowest values of the health-related SDG index. “Despite rapid economic growth, India was ranked 143rd, below Comoros, and Ghana,” stated the Lancet.

The USA ranked 28th in the world. Experts found that the relatively poor performance was mainly driven by deaths due to interpersonal violence, HIV and harmful alcohol consumption.

The USA also did badly compared to other high-income countries on maternal, child, and neonatal mortality reflecting the large differences in access and quality of healthcare in the USA.

“With more than 1870 individual collaborators in 124 countries and threeterritories, our independent analysis identifies high- and low-performing countries to help guide national policies and donor investments, and provides a strong basis for monitoring progress towards the health-related SDGs for 188 countries over the next 15 years”, says Professor Lim.

A number of regions recorded greater than expected improvement in the health-related SDG index between 2000 and 2015, including Timor-Leste, Tajikistan, Columbia, Taiwan, and Iceland. At the other end of the spectrum, five countries performed much worse than expected, including Libya and Syria, mainly as a result of war and violence. “This paper on the SDGs represents a baseline that informs health policy and decision-makers in all countries—as well as the United Nations,” says IHME Director Dr Christopher Murray. “It is essential that each year, over the next 15 years, nations be held accountable for the goals their leaders have committed to meet. This report contributes an important element to that accountability.”

Progress varied widely depending on the indicators. For instance, over 60% of countries have already met the 2030 targets on reducing maternal (less than 70 deaths per 100000 live births) and child mortality (25 deaths per 1000 live births). No countries have met any of the nine targets on the full elimination of diseases like tuberculosis and HIV, or reducing prevalence of health outcomes like childhood overweight and intimate partner violence to 0%.