65,600 households in 4 states on GIM’s radar

PANAJI: The Union ministry of health and family welfare has selected Goa Institute of Management (GIM) to conduct the 4th National Family Health Survey (NFHS) in eastern Uttar Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir and Goa, GIM director Joe Arun said at a press conference at the institute’s Ribandar campus on Friday.
A team of seven members from GIM will survey a total of 65,600 households in the four states and will collect data on health-related issues, family welfare, non-communicable diseases, HIV, domestic violence and sanitation.The Rs11crore-project for these four states will be undertaken in two stages—the first, field work, will include mapping and listing of households in selected sample villages, the second will include actual data collection.
This is the first time any institute from India’s smallest state has been selected to plan and execute a project this size, while GIM also has the distinction of being the only business school in the country to be selected for NFHS-4, said institute officials. The survey will be executed by GIM’s healthcare management programme and will be led by associate professor and core faculty Adesh Chaturvedi and dean of healthcare management, Ajit Parulekar.
“The fact that GIM has been chosen is in itself a privilege, because it synchronizes with the original ideology and philosophy on which GIM rests. We want to produce responsive and responsible leaders,” said Arun.
The fourth round of the survey, or NFHS-4, will seek essential data on health and family welfare, which will then be utilized by central and state governments for policy formulation. The survey, in total, will cover 5,71,660 households across all the 640 districts in the country with 28,583 sample units being taken. Total funding for NFHS-4 in the country is expected to be around 220 crore, which will be funded by the United States agency for international development (USAID) and India’s Union ministry of health and family welfare.
“The idea is to have comparable information on population, health, nutrition and other topics in all these (lower and middle income) countries and over time,” said Fred Arnold, senior fellow at ICF International that is providing the survey technical support.
The NFHS-4 will have some firsts too—district-level data will be compiled and all six union territories will be surveyed. It is expected to be completed and results known by 2016.
4th National Family Health Survey