India State Hunger Index - Indicators and Underlying Data

Indicators and Underlying Data

The ISHI is constructed in the same fashion as the Global Hunger Index which follows a multidimensional approach to measuring hunger and malnutrition. It combines three equally-weighted indicators:

1. the proportion of undernourished as a percentage of the population (reflecting the share of the population with insufficient dietary intake);
2. the prevalence of underweight children under the age of five (indicating the proportion of children suffering from weight loss and / or reduced growth); and
3. the mortality rate of children under the age of five (partially reflecting the fatal synergy between dietary intake and unhealthy environments).

The ISHI uses two data sources for the estimation of the Indian state level: These are the first rounds of the National Family Health Survey (2005-2006) for India and the National Sample Survey data from 2004-2005.It is calculated and presented for 17 major states, covering 95 percent of the country's population. While the National Family Health Survey has a large enough sample size to yield representative estimates of the child underweight and mortality rates even for the smaller states and union territories in the country, the sample size of the National Sample Survey is insufficient for estimating undernourishment rates in these places. Therefore, the ISHI restricts the sample to those states for which it yields precise states level estimates.