NFHS 5 !!
•The sex ratio seems to have improved from the NFHS4 data from 979 to 1034.
•Domestic violence by spouse has more than doubled and this is likely to have worsened during lockdown. It is amazing how little the government seems to be bothered about this. (1)

Population living in households that use improved sanitation facility has gone up from 57.8 to 74.8, however, there is a concern about single pits under the Swach bharat scheme and who cleans the pits. Manual scavenging can go up. (2)

Access to internet is pretty poor esp. in rural areas but even in urban areas. With the current shut down of schools, this can give a proxy idea that many children probably do not have access to online education and how shutting down schools is intrinsically discriminatory (3)

•Access to family planning methods seems to have improved from 51.8 to 68.7. It is still pretty low and efforts should be made to improve access further.
•Screening tests for cervical, breast and oral cancer seem to be abysmally low (4)
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Knowledge of HIV/AIDS seems poor in women although it's gone up from NFHS4 data. Since knowledge will also help protect against Sexually transmitted diseases, state institute of health and family welfare should make more effort to promote health education among communities.(5)

Male sterilization is zero and it seems like even the health system has stopped making attempts to encourage men to undergo NSV -shows intrinsic gender prejudice within the health system and society in general. (6)

NSV being less complicated and safer than female sterilization, all efforts should be made to increase this.
(7)

IUD use is still very low even though it has gone up from 0.8 to 2.9% . It means that more women are opting for permanent than temporary methods. It would be important to understand how this affects spacing between pregnancies. (8)

The consumption of iron and folic acid for 100 days or more has gone down to 44.7% and for 180 days or more from 32.6 to 26.7. This is likely to have worsened with the unplanned lockdown and diversion of health facilities towards Covid -19. (9)

It is important that the role of diet should be emphasized by the health system as well as the women and child development department. Anemia in children 6-59 months has increased to 65.5, and in all women age 15-49 from 44.8 to 47.8. (10)

Anemia in men has gone up. In this background, the decision of the govt to bring in an anti cow slaughter bill will take away an important dietary source of heme iron/other essential nutrients. Addressing anemia in the state doesn’t seem to be a priority for the government.(11)

The average out of pocket expenditure per delivery in a public hospital has gone up. This is a cause for concern. The average OOP in private hospitals should have been included in the NFHS5 (12)
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Institutional births have gone up but the attitude of the healthcare and staff and quality of care needs to be also looked into. Caesarian section is still high especially in private facilities (from 40.3 – 52.5). (13)

This is a cause for concern particularly as data from the private hospitals still continues to be unreliable and unregulated. (14)
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Although the vaccination rate seems to have gone up, this success would have been badly affected during the unplanned lockdown and one can expect a surge in most of the vaccine preventable diseases. (15)

Breastfeeding within an hour of birth is very low at 49 and seems to have dropped since the NFHS4. This is of concern and more intensive efforts should be made to ensure that women are facilitated to feed their babies. (16)

Weaning at 6-8 months is still very low and can contribute to malnutrition in the child. Anganwadis should ensure take home rations and particular pockets with vulnerable and marginalized communities should be covered. (17)

During lockdown there were disturbing incidents of discrimination against dalit and muslim families. Extra efforts should be made by the WCD to address this. (18)

Stunting and underweight seem to have improved marginally but it would be more important to have a break up of SC/ST children. This data only shows -2 and -3 standard deviation. It would be important to quantify -1 standard deviation. (19)

The BMI of <18.5 in women has reduced from 20.7 to 17.2, however the lockdown would even further adversely impacted BMI and the government should take extra precautions to address this. (20)