Construction of Health Infrastructure Index in Haryana: An Econometric Approach

Abstract

The provision of health infrastructure is one of the major areas of concern in Indian economy including Haryana. Health infrastructure which comprises all the resources necessary to provide health services, is proved to be essential to create health human capital. Thus, being a merit good, establishment of health infrastructure is the prime duty of the State. With this backdrop, the present study is attempted to construct health infrastructure index for the State of Haryana. On the basis of the available data taken from various issues of Statistical Abstract of Haryana, fourteen indicators of health infrastructure are considered for the period of twenty one years from 1991-92 to 201112. First of all, the collected data is analyzed by computing descriptive statistics which reveal that seven indicators of health infrastructure possess positive compound annual growth rate (CAGR) while seven others have negative CAGR and certain indicators have experienced high variations in their number over the years. Next, normalization of data is done and then by applying principal component analysis (PCA), composite index for health infrastructure is constructed in various steps including correlation matrix, KMO measure and Bartlett’s test; eigenvalues of components; component loading matrix; calculation of weights for variables (indicators of health infrastructure) and finally health infrastructure index. As per index scores, ranks are given to the State for its health infrastructure for all twenty one years. It is found that health infrastructure in Haryana for the year 2004-05 have attained rank 1st with index score 1.000, followed by 2011-12 with score 0.837 and the year 2003-04 having the value of 0.764. Between 1991-92 and 2011-12, up and downs in index scores as well as in ranks are seen. Besides, score of health infrastructure index remain up to 0.5 for eleven years while above 0.5 for ten years. However, the year 200910 can be considered quite embarrassing for which score of health infrastructure index is zero indicating availability of health infrastructure was at lowest level in this year. Fortunately, the year 2011-12 having 2nd rank in health infrastructure index arises a ray of hope for the further promotion in the availability of health infrastructural facilities in coming years in State of Haryana. However, negative growth rates of certain indicators and low scores of health infrastructure index calls for immediate attention of Government with sufficient investments towards health infrastructure in Haryana.