Trend analysis of maternal and child health indicators using national family health survey from 1992 to 2016

Abstract

Background and objective: National Family Health Surveys (NFHS) is one of the reliable source to estimate those indicators at State and National level. The first NFHS survey was conducted in 1992-93 and the fourth survey in 2015-16. This analysis is aimed to find the trend of selected maternal and child health indicators over these survey periods to help the programme planners and implementers to plan or modify the strategy towards achieving the goals. Material and methods: The results of four NFHS conducted during 1992-93, 1998-99, 2005-06 and 2015-16 were taken for analysis to assess the trend over these periods. The trend analysis comprised of antenatal care received, institutional births, fully immunized, stunted and underweight children below five years, infant mortality rate (IMR), under 5 mortality rate (U5MR) and total fertility rate (TFR). Linear regression analysis was applied to assess the trend for the selected variables. Results: The amount of variance explained in linear trend for ante-natal visit, institutional deliveries, fully immunized children, stunted children, underweight children, IMR, U5MR and TFR were 0.85, 0.84, 0.85, 0.92, 0.99, 0.99, 0.99 and 0.96 respectively. Hence, the estimates were concluded as reliable for the future rounds though the interval among the survey was not uniform. The projected ante-natal visits was 55%, institutional deliveries was 87%, fully immunized will be 66%, stunted 25%, underweight 29%, IMR 30 , U5MR 30.25 and TFR will be 1.85. Conclusion: The trends show that the achievement of all the above indicators was not satisfactory.