National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5) 2019-21 Compendium of Fact Sheets: Key Indicators – India and 14 States/UTs (Phase-II)

India’s total fertility rate – the report states – decreased from 2.2 children per woman in 2015-16, to two children per woman in 2019-21. The share of the population aged 15 and below declined from 28.6 per cent to 26.5 per cent in the same period.

There has been an increase in the usage of family planning measures from 53.5 per cent in 2015-16 to 66.7 per cent in 2019-2021. At 37.9 per cent, female sterilization remains the most popular method of family planning in the country, followed by condoms (9.5 per cent) and contraceptive pills (5.1 per cent).

The sex ratio in India increased from 991 to 1,020 females per 1,000 males between 2015-16 and 2019-21. The number stands at 1,037 and 985 females per 1,000 males in rural and urban areas.

There has been a country-level improvement in child nutrition indicators between NFHS-4 (2015-16) and NFHS-5 (2019-21). The number of children under five who suffered from stunting (low height for their age) dropped from 38.4 to 35.5 per cent. At the same time, child wasting (low weight for their height) reduced from 21 to 19.3 per cent.

The number of institutional births increased from 78.9 per cent in 2015-16 to 88.6 per cent in 2019-2021. Births in public facilities went up by nearly 10 per cent (from 52.1 to 61.9 per cent). During this period, the average out-of-pocket expenditure per delivery in public health facilities declined from Rs. 3,197 to Rs. 2,916. NFHS-5 states that the cost for such deliveries is as high as Rs. 9,731 in Arunachal Pradesh and as low as Rs. 1,619 in Madhya Pradesh.

The number of women with below normal body mass index (BMI) – which the report states is 18.5 kilograms per height in metres – has continued to decrease from previous years: it was 22.9 per cent in 2015-16 and 18.7 per cent in 2019-21. The same declining trend is observed in the percentage of men with below normal BMI from 20.2 per cent in 2015-16 to 16.2 per cent in 2019-21.

About 57 per cent of women in the age group 15-49 years are anaemic – 58.5 per cent of women in rural India and 53.8 per cent in urban areas.

NFHS-5 notes a rise in the number of women operating bank or savings accounts from 53 per cent in 2015-16 to 78.6 per cent in 2019-21. In every state and union territory covered in Phase-II of the survey, the percentage of women operating bank or savings accounts was more than 70 per cent. At 92.6 per cent, Puducherry recorded the highest percentage of women with bank or saving accounts.

The percentage of people living in households with an ‘improved sanitation facility’ increased from 48.5 per cent in 2015-16 to 70.2 per cent in 2019-21. The report describes such households as having “...a flush to piped sewer system, flush to septic tank, flush to pit latrine, flush to don't know where, ventilated improved pit (VIP)/biogas latrine, pit latrine with slab, twin pit/composting toilet, which is not shared with any other household."

The percentage of the population with access to an ‘improved drinking-water source’ increased from 94.4 per cent in 2015-16 to 95.9 per cent in 2019-21. Such sources include "...piped water into dwelling/yard/plot, piped to neighbour, public tap/standpipe, tube well or borehole, protected dug well, protected spring, rainwater, tanker truck, cart with small tank, bottled water, community RO plant."

The number of households with at least one member insured under a health or financing scheme increased to 41 per cent in 2019-21 from 28.7 per cent in 2015-16.

Focus and factoids by Kartik A. Chitrakar.

PARI Library's health archive project is part of an initiative supported by the Azim Premji University to develop a free-access repository of health-related reports relevant to rural India.