In News:

• According to the report of the National Family Health Survey (NFHS) - 5, between NFHS 4 and 5, the Total Fertility Rate (TFR) or the average number of children per woman, fell from 2.2 to 2.0 at the national level.
  
  
• Only five states in India - Bihar, Meghalaya, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand and Manipur are above the replacement level of fertility (level of fertility at which a population exactly replaces itself from one generation to the next) of 1.
  
  

What’s in today’s article:

• The NFHS (About, objective, conducted by, funding, NFHS-5)
  
  
• Key highlights of the NFHS-5
  
  

The National Family Health Survey (NFHS):

• About: It is a large-scale, multi-round survey conducted in a representative sample of households throughout India.
  
  
• Objective:
  • To collect reliable and up-to-date information on fertility, family planning, mortality and maternal & child health.
    
    
  • The national report also includes data by socioeconomic and other background variables, which are useful for policy formation and programme execution.
    
    
  
  
  
• Conducted by:
  • It is a project of the International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS), Mumbai, India. IIPS collaborates with a number of Field Organizations (FO) for survey implementation.
    
    
  • 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.
    
    
  
  
  
• Funding: NFHS was funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) with supplementary support from United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF).
  
  
• The Fifth Survey (NFHS-5):
  • Started in 2019, NFHS-5 was however stalled amid the COVID-19 associated lockdown.
    
    
  • The NFHS-5 National Report details the progress from NFHS-4 (2015-16) to NFHS-5 (2019-21).
    
    
  • The scope of NFHS-5 is expanded in respect to earlier rounds of the survey (NFHS-4) by adding new dimensions such as death registration, pre-school education, expanded domains of child immunization, etc.
    
    
  • NFHS-5 provides information on important indicators which are helpful in tracking the progress of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in the country.
    
    
  
  
  

Key highlights of the NFHS-5:

• Institutional births: Increased from 79% to 89% in India (around 87% in rural and 94% in urban areas).
  
  
• Immunization: As per results of the NFHS-5, more than three-fourths (77%) children aged 12-23 months were fully immunized, compared with 62% in NFHS-4.
  
  
• Stunting among children under five years: It has marginally declined from 38% to 36% (37% in rural areas and 30% in urban areas) in the country since the last four years.
  
  
• Overweight or 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.
  
  
• SDGs: NFHS-5 shows an overall improvement in SDGs indicators in all States/UTs.
  
  
• Women participation in decision making: The extent to which married women (participate in 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.
  • The prevalence of women having a bank or savings account that they use has increased from 53% to 79% in the last four years.