Highlights of National Family Health Survey – 5

Why in News: The national report of the NFHS-5, released by the Union Health Ministry.

Highlights

Total Fertility Rate:

• The Total Fertility Rate (TFR), the average number of children per woman, has further declined from 2.2 to 2.0 at the national level between National Family Health Survey (NFHS) 4 and 5.
• There are only five States — Bihar (2.98), Meghalaya (2.91), Uttar Pradesh (2.35), Jharkhand (2.26) Manipur (2.17) — in India which are above the replacement level of fertility of 2.1

Institutional Births

• Institutional births increased from 79% to 89% across India and in rural areas around 87% of births being delivered in institutions and the same is 94% in urban areas.

Under Age Marriage

• While the national average of underage marriages has come down, the rate has increased in Punjab, West Bengal, Manipur, Tripura, and Assam
• 3% of women surveyed got married before attaining the legal age of 18 years, down from 26.8% reported in NFHS-4. The figure for underage marriage among men is 17.7% (NFHS-5) and 20.3% (NFHS-4)
• Tripura has seen the largest jump in marriages under the legal age of 18 years for women from 33.1% (NHFS-4, conducted 2015-1) to 40.1%, and from 16.2% to 20.4% among men.
• Underage marriages are lowest in J&K, Lakshadweep, Ladakh, Himachal Pradesh, Goa, Nagaland, Kerala, Puducherry and Tamil Nadu
• Teenage pregnancies, the Survey reports, is down from 7.9% to 6.8%
• According to NFHS-5, women who are employed are more likely to use modern contraception. The data says 66.3% of women who are employed use a modern contraceptive method, compared with 53.4% of women who are not employed.

Immunization

• More than three-fourths (77%) of children aged between 12 and 23 months were fully immunized, compared with 62% in NFHS-4.

Stunting

• The level of stunting among children less than five years has marginally declined from 38% to 36% in the country since the last four years. Stunting is higher among children in rural areas (37%) than urban areas (30%) in 2019-21.

Women Empowerment

Decision Making: The extent to which married women usually participate in three household decisions (about health care for herself; making major household purchases; visit to her family or relatives) indicates that their participation in decision-making is high, ranging from 80% in Ladakh to 99% in Nagaland and Mizoram. Rural (77%) and urban (81%) differences are found to be marginal.

Financial Inclusion: The prevalence of women having a bank or savings account has increased from 53% to 79% in the last four years.

Domestic violence has come down marginally from 31.2% in 2015-16 to 29.3% in 2019-21

Obesity

• Compared with NFHS-4, the prevalence of overweight or obesity has increased in most States/UTs in NFHS-5. At the national level, it increased from 21% to 24% among women and 19% to 23% among men. More than a third of women in Kerala, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Andhra Pradesh, Goa, Sikkim, Manipur, Delhi, Tamil Nadu, Puducherry, Punjab, Chandigarh and Lakshadweep (34-46 %) are overweight or obese.

National Family Health Survey (NFHS):

• The NFHS is a large-scale, multi-round survey conducted in a representative sample of households throughout India.

Conducted By:

• The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) has designated the International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS) Mumbai, as the nodal agency for providing coordination and technical guidance for the survey.
• IIPS collaborates with a number of Field Organizations (FO) for survey implementation

Funding:

• The funding for different rounds of NFHS has been provided by USAID, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, UNICEF, UNFPA, and MoHFW (Government of India).

History of NFHS

Objective: The main objective of each successive round of the NFHS has been to provide high-quality data on health and family welfare and emerging issues in this area.

• The NFHS-1 was conducted in 1992-93.
• The NFHS-2 was conducted in 1998-99 in all 26 states of India.
• The NFHS-3 was carried out in 2005-2006
• The NFHS-4 in 2014-2015

Previous Year Questions (PYQs)

Q.1) As per the NSSO 70th Round “Situation Assessment Survey of Agricultural Households”, consider the following statements

1. Rajasthan has the highest percentage share of agricultural households among its rural households.
2. Out of the total agricultural households in the country, a little over 60 percent belong to OBCs.
3. In Kerala, a little over 60 percent of agricultural households are reported to have received maximum income from sources other than agricultural activities.

Which of the statements given above is/are correct?

1. 2 and 3 only
2. 2 only.
3. 1 and 3 only.
4. 1, 2 and 3

Source: The Hindu & Indian Express