National Family Health Survey NFHS 4 (Current Affairs – 24 Feb 2018)
According to the National Family Health Survey (NFHS 4), country’s health index improved significantly in the last decade, according to the survey fertility rate and infant mortality rate decreased.
A Look At Birth Rate In India
According to the statistics of the fourth phase of the National Family and Health Survey, the total birth rate in the country, i.e. TFR has decreased. In the previous National Family, Health Survey, i.e. NFHS-3, 2.7 children per woman, but NFHS 4 dropped it to 2.2 children per woman.
What is National Family Health Surveys
National Family Health Survey is a comprehensive and a multi-round survey the first survey was conducted in 1992-93 in the country, in this survey central point to cover, points are the birth rate, maternal and infant mortality, nutrition, health, health care, family planning, family planning.
Its purpose is to provide the necessary information to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare and other agencies to formulate a policy.
Critical points of National Family Health Survey 4
In NFHS 4, total 803211 families have been included in the country, it is 5.68 lakh more than NFHS 3, only about 109,000 families were involved in NFHS3.
According to a health survey conducted in 2015, there has been a decrease in rates of childbirth in every community except for Hindus and Muslims.
In Christian Sikh Jain and Buddhism, it has been reduced even by the replacement level. This means that if these communities continue to have no child, then the population of these communities will be reduced by the current number.
Apart from this, due to more institutional delivery and extensive immunisation coverage in the last decade, infant mortality has decreased.
According to the survey, the sex ratio has improved in the country; the contraceptive transmission has increased from 7 percent to 54 percent in newly married women, during which the entire vaccination of children between the ages of 12 and 23 months has been reported.
Full History of National Family Health Survey
• The first National Family Health Survey was conducted in 1992-93 that time total fertility rate was 3.4.
• The Second Family Health Survey was conducted in 1998-99 that time overall fertility rate was 3.4.
• The third family health survey was conducted in 2005-06 and that time fertility rate was 2.7.
• The fourth family health survey was conducted in 2015-16 and that time fertility rate was 2.2.
Benefits of low population
Countries like India have their advantages of stabilising the population. The people of the nation is already more in proportion to the resources available. Increasing people in the country, lack resources besides increasing poverty, the failure of government schemes, increasing crime, the financial burden on the nation and rising unemployment.
In such a situation, if the population is stable, poverty and unemployment can be overcome in the next 20 years due to the current growth rate.
Disadvantage of Low population
There is also its challenges to be stable in birth rates, due to the low population growth Social structure can be unbalanced.
At the same time, the sex ratio can also be disturbed, due to which the number of working people will not be available, the government has to make preparations to deal with this circumstances.
Increased child mortality rate in Delhi and Uttarakhand
Although infant mortality has improved throughout the country, in the national capital Delhi, it had already raised in 2015. The infant mortality rate in Delhi was 20 per thousand, which has increased to 22 per thousand and in Uttarakhand 2015, this was 38 deaths per thousand which rose to 41 per thousand in 2016.
Goal of National Health Policy 2017
Many health goals have been set in the new health policy, to increase the birth rate of life from existing 67.5 to 2025 by 70.
• Restricting the birth rate to 2.1 by 2025
• Reduce mortality rate to 23 years by 2025
• Reduce the infant mortality rate to 16
• Apart from this, achieving the HIV AIDS Global 90 90 90 goals by 2020
• Heart Diseases, Cancer, Diabetes involves bringing down the premature death of respiratory diseases by 2025 to 25%.
New health policy is also being considered as necessary because it has been said to provide free medicines and treatment facilities to all. In the late plan, by 2025, the target is to spend 2.5% of the total GDP in health sector current government spending 1.04 percent on health.
Countries spend on its health sector
The most prominent worry about health is low government expenditure, while other countries are going ahead of us, In this case, countries such as Sri Lanka and Malaysia are also ahead of India.
In neighbouring country China, the per capita government expenditure is the US $ 234, whereas in Malaysia it is $ 252 in the country like Mexico per capita government expenditure is $ 351. If you talk about Sri Lanka, then there are $ 71, $ 38 in Indonesia, $ 177 in Thailand and Iran $ 145 in all these countries Per capita government expenditure is higher than India, India spending only $ 23 per capita.
India’s population growth rate history-
• Between 1951 and 1961 India’s population was growing at 21 percent,
• Between 1961 and 1971, community increasing rate was 24.8 percent
• Between 1971 and 1981, population speed was still around 25 percent
• Between 1981 to 91 population speed was 23.87
India should have 6% GDP on health, but 2% of GDP is still a dream.
Report of the Indian Council of Medical Research –
In the description of Indian Council of Medical Research, it was revealed that heart disease, cancer diabetes, respiratory diseases and other non-communicable diseases are responsible for six death out of every ten deaths.
According to the report, the death of most people in the 1980s was due to malnutrition and infectious diseases, but now a large part of the population is becoming victims of many infections due to the bad habits of nutrition and lack of physical exercise.