(Note: On April 10, 2017, this post has been modified with a new shape file for the state-wise map of India.)
An infant mortality rate (IMR) is considered a primary and important indicator of a country’s overall health status or quality of life and an important indicator of social and economic progress. It is measured as the number of deaths of infants under one year old per 1,000 live births. To visually compare the different Indian states in terms of infant mortality rate, I generate a heatmap- a color coded Indian map with the colors indicating severity of IMR. The data set is taken from Government of India’s data portal. The Shape file from which the map is generated in R is taken from the ArcGIS website . In the plot below, I have used Yellow-Orange-Red to indicate low to high level of IMR.
Simple R Code that I used to generate the map:
library(maptools)
library(RColorBrewer)
# Read the shape file into a SpatialPolygonsDataFrame object
india<-readShapeSpatial(“India_SHP/INDIA.shp”)
summary(india)
# Read the infant mortality data
IMR<-read.csv(“Infant_Mortality_Rate.csv”)
# sort the data and make sure the names of the states in the SPDF object ( india$NAME_1)
matches with names in the file
# add a new attribute to india, the IMR for states
india$imr<-IMR$X2011
# Brew a color palette
incol<-brewer.pal(n=9,name=”YlOrRd”)
# plot the map
spplot(india,”imr”,col.regions=incol,at=seq(10,70,9))
Take a look at the map and feel free to make your own social, economic or political inference ! My quick comments:
1) There is wide difference between states in terms of IMR. Southern states seem to have less IMR compared to other regions, To provide an international comparison, EU average is around 5 and most of Africa avergaes 50-60.
2) Kerala(11) and Goa(12) has some of the lowest IMR in India, still far behind EU, US and other developed countries.
3) UP, MP, Odisha, and Assam have the highest IMR in India, at par with most African nations.