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J&K Beats Kerala, Has Highest Life Expectancy In India Now
10/25/2016 11:35:16 PM
Agencies

NEw Delhi, Oct 25 Jammu and Kashmir has surpassed Kerala as the state with the highest life expectancy in India for all ages, barring life expectancy at birth, according to data released on October 19, 2016, by the Registrar General of India or RGI.
The Registrar General of India publishes state level life expectancy-defined as the estimate of the average number of additional years that a person of a given age can expect to live - data for different ages: 0 (at birth), 1, 5, 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 and 70. Being the state with the highest life expectancy at birth in India, Kerala used to be the leader in almost all these age categories till 2010.
Since then, it has escaped public attention that Jammu and Kashmir has replaced Kerala as the new number one in most of these categories. More specifically, barring life expectancy at birth, Jammu and Kashmir has a higher life expectancy than Kerala for every age group included in the Registrar General of India's Sample Registration System (SRS) data analysis released last week, based on surveys done between 2010 and 2014.
India's statistical system does not produce life expectancy numbers on 15 "small states" and Union Territories (UTs), such as Goa, limiting itself to 21 "bigger" states and Union Territories.
Kerala still has the highest overall life expectancy at birth, at 74.9 years - 72 for men and 77.8 for women - according to the Sample Registration System. Delhi is second, with an overall life expectancy at birth of 73.2 years, 72 for men and 74.7 for women.
In third position is Jammu and Kashmir, which had the second-highest life expectancy at birth - behind only Kerala - even during 2006-10. Delhi was not included in the analysis then, as it became eligible for the "bigger state" status only later.
We often assume that more prosperous states, such as Kerala, Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana, Delhi, Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra, with relatively high human development scores, fare equally well in terms of overall health indicators, such as life expectancy or Infant Mortality Rate (IMR).
Why is Jammu and Kashmir number three in terms of overall life expectancy at birth? The answer lies in its Infant Mortality Rate, a measure of the children under one year who die for every 1,000 live births.
Kerala has an Infant Mortality Rate of 12, while Jammu and Kashmir has an Infant Mortality Rate of 34, closer to the national average of 39. If you consider the percentage distribution of deaths by age group, infant deaths (death before age 1) consisted of 11.3 per cent of overall deaths in Jammu and Kashmir, close to the India average of 12.3 per cent. In comparison, Kerala's infant deaths comprise 2.6 per cent of all deaths.
The reductions in Infant Mortality Rate as well as Under-5 Mortality Rate (U5MR) have been impressive over the last decade.
Within the toddler age group (1-4), Jammu and Kashmir has the lowest proportion of deaths in India - 0.1 per cent of all deaths; Kerala has 0.4 per cent.
In particular, given the low proportion of children dying in the 1-4 age category, Jammu and Kashmir's high Infant Mortality Rate needs to be looked at more closely through systematic studies. The soon-to-be-released National Family Health Survey (NFHS)-4 results for Jammu and Kashmir may address this situation.
It may look like an anomaly, but in all Indian states, with the exception of Kerala, life expectancy at birth is lower than life expectancy at age 1. In other words, a high Infant Mortality Rate drags down overall life expectancy at birth. Jammu and Kashmir is illustrative of this conundrum, as it beats Kerala in terms of life expectancy at every age category other than 0. It still ends up being third overall, behind Kerala, and even Delhi, even when women in Jammu and Kashmir have a higher life expectancy at birth (74.9) than women in Delhi (74.7).
The uncelebrated win of Jammu and Kashmir over Kerala says two things about indicators of overall health status, such as life expectancy and Infant Mortality Rate. One, life expectancy at birth does not provide a complete picture of overall health status or mortality of a society. Second, despite being one of the most popular measures of general health status, Infant Mortality Rate is not always a good indicator of overall health status or mortality.
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