The Editorial Analysis- Measuring Progress

NFHS 5: Relevance for UPSC Exam

GS Paper 2: Governance, Administration and Challenges- Issues relating to development and management of Social Sector/Services relating to Health

National Family Health Survey (NFHS) 5 phase II findings have been released by the government recently.

The results of the NFHS are usually mixed, and improvements in certain sectors ride along with stagnation and deterioration in other sectors, this year.
In NFHS 5, there have been radical improvements in maternal and child health, sex ratio and population control.
A greater proportion of births than ever before is now happening in institutions, more children in the 12-23 months age group have received their vaccinations.
India has achieved a total fertility rate of 2.0, dropping further from the figure of 2.2 during NFHS-4, indicating that India has contained the population explosion.
Having measured blood sugar and hypertension in the population for the first time, NFHS-5 highlighted the looming threat from lifestyle diseases.

Policies, some even coercive, as in the case of the family planning sector, seem to have borne fruit, years after they were implemented.
While gender ratio has, for the first time, recorded more women per 1,000 men, the gender ratio at birth in the last five years still underlines the persistence of a deep-rooted son preference.
Childhood nutrition saw marginal gains, especially in wasting and severe wasting, but these are deemed insufficient and require renewed corrective efforts.
Impact of the pandemic: It shows that pandemics have caused disruption to services such as balanced nutrition for children.

About: National Family Health Survey (NFHS) 5 phase 2 this year, covering over six lakh households across the country.
Objective: NFHS 5 aims at providing data that will help shape the policies in a manner that will correct deficiencies, and ensure equitable access to services, particularly those with an impact on social determinants that improve the quality of life.
- State-level indices are also released, to provide comparisons, but also to allow States to launch course correction, or to be inspired by success stories in other regions.
Inputs on marriage and fertility, family planning, access to education and health services are provided by the NFHS.

States need to treat it as such, and while they might dispute some assessments, the greater idea is to recognize it as a matrix to work on, to improve the development indicators further.
The Centre must not treat findings of NFHS 5 as a mere stocktaking exercise, but harness the opportunities the NFHS provides for launching reform or re-assessing certain policies without using it as a political tool in a federal setup.

A periodic assessment of health and social development indicators is crucial for any country that is still clawing its way towards achieving ideal standards in the Human Development Index.
The findings of NFHS 5 underscores the need for building resilient and fortified systems capable of delivering in the most trying circumstances.

shivam