NFHS-3

The 2005-06 National Family Health Survey (NFHS-3) is the third in a series of national surveys; earlier NFHS surveys were carried out in 1992-93 (NFHS-1) and 1998-99 (NFHS-2). All three surveys were conducted under the stewardship of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India, with the International Institute for Population Sciences, Mumbai, serving as the nodal agency. ORC Macro, Calverton, Maryland, USA, provided technical assistance for all three NFHS surveys. NFHS-1 and NFHS-2 were funded by the United States Agency for International Development, with supplemental funding from UNICEF. NFHS-3 funding was provided by the United States Agency for International Development, the Department for International Development (United Kingdom), the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, UNICEF, the United Nations Population Fund, and the Government of India. Assistance for the HIV component of the NFHS-3 survey was provided by the National AIDS Control Organisation and the National AIDS Research Institute. 

In NFHS-3, 18 research organisations conducted interviews with more than 230,000 women age 15-49 and men age 15-54 throughout India. NFHS-3 also tested more than 100,000 women and men for HIV and more than 200,000 adults and young children for anaemia. Fieldwork for NFHS-3 was conducted from December 2005 to August 2006.

SCOPE OF NFHS-3

NFHS-3, like NFHS-1 and NFHS-2, is a household survey which will provide estimates of indicators of population, health, and nutrition by background characteristics at the national and state levels. In NFHS-3, information is collected about households, and individual interviews are conducted with women age 15-49 and men age 15-54. NFHS-3 also includes height and weight measurement and blood tests for HIV and anaemia.

  1. SURVEY OBJECTIVES
  2. NFHS-3 SURVEY
SURVEY OBJECTIVES

Each successive round of the NFHS has had two specific goals: a) to provide essential data on health and family welfare needed by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare and other agencies for policy and programme purposes, and b) to provide information on important emerging health and family welfare issues. To meet the first of these two aims, NFHS-3, like NFHS-1 and NFHS-2:

  •  Provides estimates of important family welfare and health indicators by background characteristics at the national and state levels; and

  •  Measures trends in family welfare and health indicators over time at the national and state levels

NFHS-3 also provides information on several new and emerging issues including:
  •   Perinatal mortality, male involvement in family welfare, adolescent reproductive health, high-risk sexual behaviour, family life education, safe injections, tuberculosis, and malaria;

  •   Family welfare and health conditions among slum and non-slum dwellers in eight cities (Chennai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Indore, Kolkata, Meerut, Mumbai and Nagpur); and

  •   HIV prevalence for adult women and men at the national level, for Uttar Pradesh, and for five high HIV prevalence states, namely, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Manipur, and Tamil Nadu.

SURVEY PROCESS

The survey process consists of establishing committees for guidance and consultation to the survey, including designing the sample, questionnaires, and survey procedures; selecting and training survey organizations, translating data into electronic data files, and preparation of reports.

SAMPLING

The sampling involved decisions about the sample size for interviews with women and men and for HIV tests to be carried out in each state and eight cities, and the procedure for drawing the samples.

QUESTIONNAIRES

Three different questionnaires are used for collecting household data and interviewing eligible women and men.

PROCEDURAL MANUALS

To maintain uniform survey procedures across the states and minimize non-sampling errors, eight different comprehensive manuals were prepared

Back to Top