National Family Health Survey

The National Family Health Survey (NFHS) is a large-scale household survey that describes the health, nutrition and family circumstances of India’s population. It provides information on population, reproductive and child health, nutrition and related social conditions, with particular relevance to women and children.

Coverage and organisation

The survey is conducted under the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, with the International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS), Mumbai, serving as the nodal agency. It uses representative samples of households rather than counting every person.

• It covers rural and urban populations and provides national and state-level estimates; recent rounds also provide district-level estimates for many indicators.
• Household information is supplemented by interviews with eligible women and men and by selected physical measurements and biological tests.
• Questionnaires and measurement coverage can change between rounds, so the scope of a particular indicator must be checked before making comparisons.

Major subjects and measurements

The NFHS links health outcomes with household circumstances, allowing analysis of differences by residence, education, wealth and social group.

• Population and reproductive health indicators include fertility, marriage, contraceptive use, unmet need for family planning and infant and child mortality.
• Maternal and child health indicators include antenatal care, delivery care, postnatal care, immunisation, childhood illnesses and treatment-seeking.
• Nutrition indicators include breastfeeding and child-feeding practices, child growth, adult nutritional status and anaemia.
• Women’s circumstances are examined through indicators such as participation in household decisions, marriage-related characteristics and experiences of domestic violence.
• Household conditions include drinking water, sanitation, electricity, cooking fuel and assets, which help explain social and environmental influences on health.
• Recent rounds have broadened coverage of non-communicable disease risk indicators, including measured blood pressure and blood glucose.

Policy uses and limits

The NFHS provides an evidence base for identifying inequalities and planning health, nutrition and welfare interventions. For women and children, it helps connect disadvantage in household conditions and social status with measurable health outcomes.

• Repeated rounds support trend monitoring and assessment of progress towards health and development goals, subject to comparability of indicators.
• It is a sample survey, not a census or a continuous system for recording births, deaths or disease cases.
• Its findings reveal patterns and associations, but do not by themselves establish that a particular policy caused an observed change.