NFHS 5

Measuring the change By NHFS

India should invest more to enhance the reliability of various socio-economic surveys

11/05/2022 

About NFHS ?

 The National Family Health Survey (NFHS) is a large-scale, multi-round survey conducted in a representative sample of households throughout India. 

Three rounds of the survey have been conducted since the first survey in 1992-93. The survey provides state and national information for India on fertility, infant and child mortality, the practice of family planning, maternal and child health, reproductive health, nutrition, anaemia, utilization and quality of health and family planning services. 

Each successive round of the NFHS has had two specific goals: a) to provide essential data on health and family welfare needed by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare and other agencies for policy and programme purposes, and b) to provide information on important emerging health and family welfare issues. 

The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MOHFW), Government of India, designated the International Institute for Population Sciences(IIPS) Mumbai, as the nodal agency, responsible for providing coordination and technical guidance for the survey.

 IIPS collaborated with a number of Field Organizations (FO) for survey implementation. 

Each FO was responsible for conducting survey activities in one or more states covered by the NFHS.

Technical assistance for the NFHS was provided mainly by ICF (USA) and other organizations on specific issues. 

The funding 

for different rounds of NFHS has been provided by USAID, DFID, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, UNICEF, UNFPA, and MOHFW, GOI.

The fifth edition of the National Family Health Survey (NFHS)

 provides a valuable insight into changes underway in Indian society.

 It throws light on traditional parameters 

🌑for instance immunisation among children, 

🌑births in registered hospital facilities,

🌑 and nutritional levels. 

While there is a general improvement in these parameters, there were mixed signals in nutrition.

 nutrition 

Gains in childhood nutrition were minimal as were improvements in obesity in मोटापा levels.

 The prevalence of anaemia has actually worsened since the last survey in 2015-16.

 But the survey’s major contribution is its insight into behavioural and sociological churn.

 total fertility rate

When highlights were made public last year, the focus was on India’s declining total fertility rate that had, for the first time in the country’s history, dipped to below the replacement level, or a TFR (Total Fertility Rate) of 2.1. 

If the trend were to persist, India’s population was on the decline in line with what has been observed in developed countries।

क्या होगा फायदा

 and theoretically means improved living standards per capita and greater gender equity.

 Because this TFR had been achieved across most States, two notable exceptions being most populous Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, it was also evidence that population decline could be achieved without coercive state policies and family planning has struck deep roots. 

The more detailed findings, made public last week, suggest that this decline is agnostic संदेह to religion.

The fertility rate among Muslims dipped to 2.3 in 2019-2021 from 2.6 in 2015-16, the sharpest among all religious communities when compared to the 4.4 in NFHS 1 in 1992-93.

gender equity

 Another set of subjective questions that the NFHS attempts to answer using hard data is gender equity. 

🌑Less than a third of married women are working and

🌑 nearly 44% do not have the freedom to go to the market alone.

🌑 However, a little over 80% have said that they can refuse demands for sex from their husband. This has implications for legal questions surrounding marital rape.

🌑 Only 72% of Indian men think it is not right to coerce, threaten or use force on a woman if denied sex, which again points to the vast territory that needs to be covered in educating men about equality, choice and freedom in marriage. 

number of registered births and deaths

This question made it for the first time in the family health survey as did another question, about the number of registered births and deaths, in the family survey. 

Multiple surveys such as the NFHS, Sample Registration Surveys, the Census, labour, economic surveys and ways of interrogation are necessary for insights about a country as vast and complex as India; the Centre should invest more substantially in improving their reliability.