National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5) 2019-21: Andhra Pradesh

About 85 per cent of the households in Andhra Pradesh lived in a pucca house and more than 99 percent of households had access to electricity.

Roughly 16 per cent of all households and 22 per cent of all rural households lacked ‘improved’ sanitation facilities. Only 70 per cent of the households belonging to members of Scheduled Tribes had access to a toilet facility.

About 29 per cent of all households in Andhra Pradesh owned agricultural land and 24 per cent of all households owned farm animals.

Of all the households surveyed, 91 per cent had access to basic drinking water. Water piped into people’s dwelling, yard or plot, however, was available only to 22 per cent of the total households – 35.2 per cent of urban and 15.6 per cent of rural households.

Among children aged 2-4 years, about 67 per cent of boys and 68 per cent of girls attended preschool. The report states that 69.5 per cent of children (aged 2-4 years) from Scheduled Tribe households attended preschool. Moreover, only 66.5 per cent of children from non-nuclear households attended preschool in Andhra Pradesh.

School attendance of children was noted to be 97.5 per cent among those aged 6-14 years and 73.3 per cent among those aged 15-17 years.

In Andhra Pradesh, among women aged 20-49 years, the median age at first marriage was recorded to be 18.4 years. The report adds that 24 per cent of women between 20 and 24 years of age got married before attaining the legal minimum age of 18 years, a decrease from the NFHS-4 estimates of 33 per cent.

The total fertility rate in Andhra Pradesh among women (aged 15-49 years) was 1.7 children per woman – 1.5 children per woman in urban areas and 1.8 children per woman in rural areas.

In the five years preceding the survey, nine per cent of all pregnancies terminated in foetal wastage (abortion, miscarriage, or stillbirth, as per the report). Miscarriage accounted for five of the nine per cent of such pregnancies and abortions accounted for three per cent.

The contraceptive prevalence rate among currently married women (aged 15-49 years) in Andhra Pradesh was 71.1 per cent, a slight increase from the 69.5 per cent noted during NFHS-4. About 36 per cent of men aged 15-49 years believed that contraception was “women’s business”.

The infant mortality rate was estimated at 30 deaths (before the age of one year) per 1,000 live births, a fall from 35 deaths recorded in NFHS-4. Infant mortality rate among teenage mothers was 46 deaths per 1,000 live births.

Prevalence of anaemia among children (aged 6-59 months) increased from 59 per cent during NFHS-4 to 63 per cent during NFHS-5. Among persons between the ages of 15-49 years, 59 per cent of women and 16 per cent of men were anaemic.

In Andhra Pradesh, 91.4 per cent of women and 97 per cent of men had heard of HIV/AIDS. The report notes that only 24.6 per cent of women and 38.6 per cent of men had ‘comprehensive’ knowledge about it.

About 70 per cent of all households surveyed in Andhra Pradesh had any kind of health insurance or financing scheme which covered at least one member of the household.

Only 71 per cent of women participated in decisions regarding their own health, 75 per cent were involved in decisions regarding visiting their family and relatives and 76 per cent took part in decisions on major household purchases.

Focus and Factoids by T. Rajapandian.

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.