Minister of State (Health and Family Welfare), Shri Ashwini Kumar Choubey has informed that Four rounds of National Family Health Survey (NFHS) were conducted in rural and urban areas of the country during 1992-93(NFHS 1), 1998-99 (NFHS 2), 2005-06 (NFHS-3) and 2015-16 (NFHS-4). The Three rounds (2010-11, 2011-12 and 2012-13) of Annual Health Survey (AHS) were carried out, through the Office of Registrar General & Census Commissioner of India, in both urban and rural areas of 284 districts of namely Assam, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand.
The major findings of NFHSs are available at http://rchiips.org/NFHS/index.shtml and of AHSs at http://www.censusindia.gov.in/2011-Common/AHSurvey.html respectively.
In NFHS-1, Srinagar region of Jammu and Kashmir was not covered due to Law and Order situation and Sikkim was also not covered as basic parameters for sample selection were not available.
NFHS-1, 2, 3 didn’t cover UTs except Delhi because the objective of the survey then was to provide State level estimates.
The Ministry, to meet the requirement of timely and reliable information at National, State and District level had taken a decision to conduct one integrated survey with a periodicity of three years in place of different surveys (National Family Health Survey, District Level Household and Facility Survey etc.) being carried out by the Ministry.
Fourth round of National Health Survey (NFHS-4) was conducted in 2015-16 as the first integrated survey with the aim to provide estimates of the levels of fertility, infant and child mortality by background characteristics at State/National level and other key family welfare and health indicators at the National, State and District levels.
NFHS-5 has been planned considering NFHS-4 as the benchmark. In NFHS-5, 707 districts including the new 67 districts created upto March, 2017 (After Census 2011) will be covered, as against 640 districts covered in NFHS-4.
NFHS-5 scope has also expanded by considering target population groups for certain data to align with Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), expanded age range will be considered for diabetes, hypertension and also for its risk factors. The NFHS-5 has also been restructured by including inter-alia questions on disability, collection of DBS for carrying out tests for malaria, HbA1c and Vitamin D and Measurement of waist and hip circumference, pre-school education, death registration etc. However, the HIV testing component has been dropped from NFHS-5 with the consent of NACO. Further, urban and rural-estimates at the district level and slum, non-slum estimates will not be provided in NFHS-5.