Why should you, as an informed citizen of this country, be aware of how well India is doing in terms of health?
The question isn’t rhetorical. For its own sake is a more than good enough answer, of course, but here are additional reasons for keeping track of how well we’re doing as a country in terms of health:
- If you think that the Solow model is a good way to start to think about the long term growth prospects of our nation, then thinking about the health of that workforce is important
- If you think it is possible that different states may have different health outcomes, it makes sense to try and understand whether this is the case.
- It also makes sense to dig into the data and try and understand the particulars of these differences. (A state may do poorly on life expectancy in comparison to other states, for example, but better along other dimensions. Why might this be so is an excellent question to ask, and this is just one of many possible questions.)
- This is true for many other ways to “slice” this data. Are there different outcomes by, say, gender? By urban/rural divide?
- The answers to each of these questions is important because it helps us understand how to build a framework to answer the mot important question of them all: if we have to improve India’s health, where should we start?
And for all of these reasons (and so many more) it makes sense for all of us to be aware of the results of the NFHS survey.
What is the NFHS Survey?
The National Family Health Survey (NFHS) is a large-scale, multi-round survey conducted in a representative sample of households throughout India. The NFHS is a collaborative project of the International Institute for Population Sciences(IIPS), Mumbai, India; ICF, Calverton, Maryland, USA and the East-West Center, Honolulu, Hawaii, USA. The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MOHFW), Government of India, designated IIPS as the nodal agency, responsible for providing coordination and technical guidance for the NFHS. NFHS was funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) with supplementary support from United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). 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 by ICF and the East-West Center.
http://rchiips.org/nfhs/about.shtml
Why is the NFHS important?
Why do we have something like NFHS? To obtain data on health and nutrition, disaggregated to the level of districts. We want to take stock of developmental targets at a single point in time and wish to track improvements (or deterioration) over time.
https://www.newindianexpress.com/opinions/columns/2021/dec/13/nfhs-andwhy-surveys-are-better-than-asking-a-cab-driver-2394809.html
How often is the NFHS carried out?
That’s a little tricky to answer, but I can tell you that there have been five rounds so far. The first one was in 1992-93, the second in 1998-99, the third in 2005-06, the fourth in 2015-16 (and this decade long gap is why this question is a little tricky to answer) and the fifth in 2020-21.
OK, so we can use this data to see how health in India has evolved over time?
Um, not exactly:
To gauge improvements over time, ideally, we should have what statisticians and economists call a panel. In a panel, across time, questions are asked to the same individuals/households. For something like NFHS, that’s not possible. In addition, for NFHS-5, compared to NFHS-4 (2015–16), additional questions have been asked. For those questions, gauging improvements over time is naturally impossible.
https://www.newindianexpress.com/opinions/columns/2021/dec/13/nfhs-andwhy-surveys-are-better-than-asking-a-cab-driver-2394809.html
Then what can we use the data for?
Especially because the answer to the first question in this series included this: “wish to track improvements (or deterioration) over time.”
Well, yes, it did. And we do use this data to see how health in India has evolved over time. But it’s not a perfect comparison, because we aren’t tracking the same households over time, and it therefore isn’t an apples to apples comparison. But the perfect shouldn’t be the enemy of the good, especially in public policy! The fifth round has in fact been structured in such a way so as to make the results as comparable as possible.
How many households are covered?
NFHS-5 fieldwork for India was conducted in two phases, phase one from 17 June 2019 to 30 January 2020 and phase two from 2 January 2020 to 30 April 2021 by 17 Field Agencies and gathered information from 636,699 households, 724,115 women, and 101,839 men
http://rchiips.org/nfhs/NFHS-5_FCTS/India.pdf
What questions are asked in this survey?
That’s a great question to ask!
Four Survey Schedules – Household, Woman’s, Man’s, and Biomarker – were canvassed in local languages
using Computer Assisted Personal Interviewing (CAPI).
In the Household Schedule, information was collected on all usual members of the household and visitors who stayed in the household the previous night, as well as socio-economic characteristics of the household:water, sanitation, and hygiene; health insurance coverage; disabilities; land ownership; number of deaths in the household in the three years preceding the survey; and the ownership and use of mosquito nets.
The Woman’s Schedule covered a wide variety of topics, including the woman’s characteristics, marriage, fertility, contraception, children’s immunizations and healthcare, nutrition, reproductive health, sexual behaviour, HIV/AIDS, women’s empowerment, and domestic violence.
The Man’s Schedule covered the man’s characteristics, marriage, his number of children, contraception, fertility preferences, nutrition, sexual behaviour, health issues, attitudes towards gender roles, and HIV/AIDS.
The Biomarker Schedule covered measurements of height, weight, and haemoglobin levels for children; measurements of height, weight, waist and hip circumference, and haemoglobin levels for women age 15-49 years and men age 15-54 years; and blood pressure and random blood glucose levels for women and men age 15 years and over. In addition, women and men were requested to provide a few additional drops of blood from a finger prick for laboratory testing for HbA1c, malaria parasites, and Vitamin D3.
http://rchiips.org/nfhs/NFHS-5_FCTS/India.pdf
Whoa, that’s… a lot!
Indeed it is! If you haven’t clicked through to those PDF’s that have been linked to in the previous question, take the time out to go and do so. Conducting one of these surveys isn’t easy. All of these, and across these numbers (636,699 households, 724,115 women, and 101,839 men) is pretty tough, and kudos to the team that did the work.
So how are these households selected?
Another excellent question. From the interview manual (and if you are a student of statistics, this manual ought to be mandatory reading):
All 29 states and seven union territories (UTs) will be included in NFHS-5. NFHS-5 will provide
estimates of most indicators at the district level for all 707 districts in the country as on 1 March
2017.
For NFHS-5, the sample consists of approximately 30,456 clusters (small geographically defined
http://rchiips.org/NFHS/NFHS5/manuals/NFHS-5%20Interviewer%20Manual_Eng.pdf
areas) throughout the country. The households in each of these clusters have recently been listed or
enumerated. A sample of households was then scientifically selected to be included in NFHS-5 from
the list in each of the clusters. Each of these households will be visited and information obtained
about the household using the Household Questionnaire. Women and men within these households
will be interviewed using an Individual Questionnaire. Women age 15-49 years will be interviewed
using the individual Woman’s Questionnaire. Men age 15-54 years will be interviewed using the
individual Man’s Questionnaire. We expect to complete interviews with about 7,45,488 women and
1,19,501 men in 670,032 households in this survey.
And how are the surveys conducted?
During NFHS-5 fieldwork, you will work in a team consisting of one field supervisor, three female
http://rchiips.org/NFHS/NFHS5/manuals/NFHS-5%20Interviewer%20Manual_Eng.pdf
interviewers, and one male interviewer. Each team will be provided with a vehicle and driver for
travelling from one Primary Sampling Unit (PSU) to another to conduct the fieldwork.
In addition, the team will include two health investigators. These individuals will be responsible for
drawing blood from eligible persons for testing for anaemia status, blood pressure, and blood glucose. In
addition, the health investigators will collect blood drops from a finger stick on filter paper cards,
which will be tested for malaria, HbA1c, and Vitamin D3 in ICMR laboratories. They will also be
responsible for the anthropometric measurements of eligible women, men, and children. The supervisors
will also receive some biomarker training so that they can supervise the health investigators and assist
them as needed. All interviewers will be trained to assist the health investigators in taking the
anthropometric measurements(height, weight, and waist and hip circumference measurements).
Each team supervisor will be responsible for his/her team of interviewers and health investigators.
The specific duties of the supervisor are described in detail in the Supervisor’s Manual.
This PDF, the one that I have excerpted from, is 182 pages long. I am not for a moment suggesting that all of you must read every single word. But I’ll say this much: if you are currently studying either statistics or economics, you should go through it more than once. It is one thing to learn from textbooks, and quite another to understand the on the ground realities.
In tomorrow’s post, let’s dig in and take a look at the data itself, and see what the NFHS-5 results tell us about our country’s health.
EconForEverybody 