{"id":36041,"date":"2023-06-24T03:42:06","date_gmt":"2023-06-23T22:12:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=36041"},"modified":"2025-06-30T12:06:51","modified_gmt":"2025-06-30T06:36:51","slug":"national-family-health-survey-nfhs-centre-defends-nfhs-6-questionnaire-says-disability-data-wont-cha","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/national-family-health-survey-nfhs-centre-defends-nfhs-6-questionnaire-says-disability-data-wont-cha\/","title":{"rendered":"National Family Health Survey (NFHS): Centre defends NFHS-6 questionnaire, says disability data won\u2019t change fast"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3><strong>What\u2019s in today\u2019s article?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Why in News?<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>The NFHS<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Number of Surveys Conducted<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>News Summary Regarding Disability Data<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Why in News?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>In response to criticism over the exclusion of disability-related questions in the 6th round of <strong>NFHS-6<\/strong>, the Union Health Ministry said that there is no need to collect these data every 3 years, as it will not change very fast.<\/li>\n<li>The primary focus of NFHS is <strong>maternal and child health<\/strong> and the Survey won\u2019t be able to collect accurate data on disability in its current form.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<h2><strong>The National Family Health Survey (NFHS):<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>About:<\/strong> It is a large-scale, multi-round survey conducted in a <strong>representative sample of households<\/strong> throughout India.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Objective:<\/strong> To collect reliable and up-to-date information on fertility, family planning, mortality and maternal &amp; child health.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Conducted by:<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>All surveys have been conducted under the stewardship of the <strong>Ministry of Health and Family Welfare<\/strong> (MoHFW), Government of India.<\/li>\n<li>MoHFW designated the International Institute for Population Sciences (<strong>IIPS<\/strong>), Mumbai, as the nodal agency for the surveys.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Funding:<\/strong> NFHS was funded by the United States Agency for International Development (<strong>USAID<\/strong>) with supplementary support from United Nations Children&#8217;s Fund (<strong>UNICEF<\/strong>).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<h2><strong>Number of Surveys Conducted:<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>The First Survey (NFHS-1):<\/strong> Conducted in <strong>1992-93<\/strong>, the survey collected extensive information on population, health and nutrition, with an emphasis on women and young children.<\/li>\n<li><strong>The Second Survey (NFHS-2):<\/strong> Conducted in <strong>1998-99<\/strong> in all the states of India with <strong>added features<\/strong> on the quality of health and family planning services, domestic violence, reproductive health, anaemia, the nutrition of women and the status of women.<\/li>\n<li><strong>The Third Survey (NFHS-3):<\/strong> Carried out in <strong>2005-2006<\/strong>, with the National AIDS Control Organization (NACO) and the National AIDS Research Institute (NARI) providing technical assistance for the HIV component.<\/li>\n<li><strong>The Fourth Survey (NFHS-4): <\/strong>Carried out in <strong>2014-2015<\/strong>, NFHS-4 is the first of the NFHS series that collects data <strong>in each of India\u2019s States and UTs<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li><strong>The 2019-2021 Fifth Survey (NFHS-5):<\/strong> NFHS-5 findings were eventually revealed in December 2020 (Phase-1), based on which MoHFW established a technical expert panel to develop indicators for malnutrition, stunting, anaemia and C-section.<\/li>\n<li><strong>The 2023-24 NFHS-6:<\/strong> The sixth in the NFHS series, provides information on population, health, and nutrition for India and each state and UT. Like NFHS-4 and NFHS-5, NFHS-6 also provides <strong>district-level estimates<\/strong> for many important indicators.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>News Summary Regarding Disability Data:<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>The questions on disability were included<\/strong> for the first time in the NFHS-5. Based on the NFHS-5 report, it was observed that disability prevalence was<strong> only 1% for rural areas and 0.9% for urban areas.<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>However, <strong>National Sample Survey Office (NSSO)<\/strong> estimates for the year 2018 showed 2.3% for rural areas and 2% for urban areas.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Questionnaires in the NFHS-6 <\/strong>are based on recommendations by the Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) and other higher-level committees constituted for smooth functioning of the Survey.\n<ul>\n<li>However, TAC recommended that proposed <strong>questions related to disability estimates need not be included in NFHS-6, <\/strong>as NSSO data is still relevant in this domain.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Also, types of disability had <strong>several medical terminologies<\/strong>, which may result in inappropriate responses as the respondents might not be aware of the specific disabilities.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Disability rights activists<\/strong> said that people with disabilities in India experience an average loss of 10-17 years in life expectancy and closing this gap for the world\u2019s largest minority group requires <strong>access to comprehensive health data<\/strong>.\n<ul>\n<li>With the NFHS- 6 survey scheduled to commence in just a month\u2019s time,<strong> it is imperative to act swiftly and prioritise the inclusion of the disability question.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>The government\u2019s response stating that data does not change over three years demonstrates a<strong> lack of sensitivity.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h3><strong>Q1) What is UNICEF?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>The UN Children&#8217;s Fund (UNICEF) is an UN agency (established in 1946 in New York) responsible for providing humanitarian and developmental aid to children worldwide.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3><strong>Q2) What is the Accessible India Campaign?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>Also known as Sugamya Bharat Abhiyan, it was launched in 2015 to serve the differently-able community of the country. The program comes with an index to measure the design of disabled-friendly buildings and human resource policies.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Source:<\/strong>\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.thehindu.com\/news\/national\/nfhs-row-disability-data-will-not-change-very-fast-and-need-not-be-collected-every-three-years-says-health-ministry\/article67001352.ece\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><u>Centre defends National Family Health Survey-6 questionnaire, says disability data won\u2019t change fast<\/u><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>NFHS is a large-scale, multi-round survey conducted in a representative sample of households throughout India<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":36042,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-36041","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-mains-current-affairs","8":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36041","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36041"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36041\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36042"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36041"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36041"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36041"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}