Brookings India consortium brings together researchers analysing National Family Health Survey IV

The National Family Health Survey 2015-16 conducted by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare provides information at an individual, household, district, state, and country level about various metrics related to health. The survey’s 800,000+ household observations are appropriately weighted by the International Institute of Population Sciences to provide accurate statistics at each unit of analysis.

As the fourth iteration of the NFHS series, the survey builds provides state information on infant and child mortality, the practice of family planning, maternal and child health, reproductive health, and utilisation of health and family planning services by both expanding the range of variables that are recorded, and also increasing the size of the sample to make values representative at a district level.  For the first time in history, India has information on district-level arthropometric measures, non-communicable diseases, HIV prevalence, health insurance prevalence, and many other metrics.

The consortium brings together scholars across many institutions, to produce high-quality papers and policy briefs in a timely manner to inform health policy in India.

Based on the NFHS-4 survey, Brookings India has created a consortium of scholars across many institutions, to produce high-quality papers and policy briefs in a timely manner to inform health policy in India. The Brookings India NFHS-4 Consortium aims to highlight public health research from different specialisations including economics, demography, nutrition, data analytics and machine learning and management. The common research agenda is to inform real time health policy making through empirical evidence based on the NFHS surveys.

The broad topics of research covered include infant, child, and adult mortality; adult and child nutrition; maternal and child health coverage; non-communicable diseases; as well as big data analytics from the NFHS-4.

On April 24, 2018, Brookings India, in partnership with NITI Aayog, the government’s think-tank, conducted the first in a series of workshops under this consortium, where affiliated scholars presented their initial findings. Brookings India will organise a series of workshops and seminars by researchers in collaboration with government bodies including the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, NITI Aayog and selected state governments (and their health missions).

Based on a “Call for papers” in March 2018, scholars were selected into the Brookings India NFHS-4 Consortium. Below is the list of selected scholars, the organisations they are affiliated with and their research topics.

• Prevalence of Hypertension; Mudit Kapoor, Ambuj Roy; Indian Statistical Institute, All India Institute of Medical Sciences
• Public Health Infrastructure Gap and Health Outcomes; Shamika Ravi, Dhruv Gupta; Brookings India
• Machine Learning and Data Mining Techniques in Analysis of Public Health Data; Debarka Sengupta; Indian Institute of Information Technology
• Early Life Exposure to Crop Burnings: Effects on Child Health; Prachi Singh; Indian Statistical Institute
• Interpreting Child Malnutrition: Evidence from NFHS 4; SV Subramanian; Harvard University
• Explaining Changes in Childhood Nutrition (Working Title); Sunaina Dhingra; Delhi University
• Role of Private Sector on Cesarean C-Sections: Evidence from NFHS 4; Ambrish Dongre, Mitul Surana; Indian Institute of Management (Ahmedabad)
• Socio-economic Inequalities in Food Consumption and Dietary Diversity among children in India: Evidence from NFHS-4; Sutapa Agrawal, William Joe, SV Subramanian; The India Nutrition Initiative, Delhi University, Harvard University
• Institutional Births and Immunization Coverage: in India Next Steps for Universal Coverage; SV Subramanian, William Joe, Sunil Rajpal, Rakesh Kumar; Harvard University, Delhi University
• What Poor Women Want for Healthcare?; Mudit Kapoor, Shamika Ravi, Ambuj Roy, A.K. Shiva Kumar, SV Subramanian; India Statistical Institute, Brookings India, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, UNICEF, Harvard University
• Progress and inequalities in infant and young child feeding practices in India between 2006-2016; Purnima Menon, Phuong Hong Nguyen, Rasmi Avula, Lan Tran Mai; International Food Policy Research Institute, FHI360
• Son “Meta” Preference and “Unwanted” Girls; Arvind Subramanian, Abhishek Anand, Sowmya Ganesh, Siddharth Hari, Navneeraj Sharma; Chief Economic Advisor (Government of India)
• Economic gains and improvements in sanitation, women’s status and health services explain most of the improvement in stunting in India over the past decade (2006-2016); Purnima Menon, Phuong Hong Nguyen, Derek Headey; International Food Policy Research Institute
• Progress and challenges of maternal and child anemia in India 2006-2016: Insights from two rounds of National Family Health Surveys; Purnima Menon, Phuong Hong Nguyen, Samuel Scott, Rasmi Avula, Lan Mai Tran; International Food Policy Research Institute, FHI360
• Childhood wasting in India manifests early in life and is mainly explained by maternal and household deprivation: Insights from the 2015-2016 National and Health Family Survey; Purnima Menon, Phuong Hong Nguyen, Derek Headey, Rasmi Avula, Melissa Young, Reynaldo Martorell, Lan Mai Train; International Food Policy Research Institute, Emory University, FHI360