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

Two-thirds (67 per cent) of households surveyed in Uttarakhand were situated in rural areas. Around 75.7 per cent of households lived in pucca houses and almost all (99.4 per cent) had access to electricity.

As many as 95.5 per cent of households surveyed in the state had access to an ‘improved source’ of drinking water such as piped water, public taps, standpipes, tube wells or boreholes.

‘Clean fuel’ for cooking – electricity, liquefied petroleum gas, natural gas – was used by 59.2 per cent of the surveyed households. The percentage was much higher in urban areas (92.9 per cent) than in rural areas (42.9 per cent).

Among children aged 2-4 years, 31.7 per cent attended preschool – 29.4 per cent in urban areas and 32.7 per cent in rural areas. School attendance among children aged 6-14 years in Uttarakhand was 93.5 per cent, but it fell to 72.4 per cent among those between the ages of 15-17 years.

The contraceptive prevalence rate among married women (aged 15-49 years) in the state increased from 53.4 per cent in NFHS-4 to 70.8 per cent in NFHS-5. About 57.8 per cent of married women surveyed in Uttarakhand used modern methods of contraception like sterilisation, pills, intrauterine devices, injectables and condoms.

The median age at first marriage among women aged 25-49 years was recorded at 19.5 years. The report notes than one in 10 women surveyed (aged 20-24) had married before reaching the legal minimum age of 18 years, a fall from the 14 per cent recorded in NFHS-4.

In the five years preceding the survey, 83.2 per cent of births took place in health facilities – 53.3 per cent in public facilities and 29.6 per cent in private facilities. Around 16.6 per cent deliveries took place at home.

The infant mortality rate in Uttarakhand declined from 40 deaths (before the age of one) per 1,000 live births in NFHS-4 to 39.1 deaths in NFHS-5. The under-five mortality rate also declined from 46.7 deaths (before the age of five) per 1,000 live births to 45.5 deaths, during the same period.

Among women who had given birth in the five years before the survey, 66.7 per cent had received antenatal care from a doctor while 20.5 per cent received care from an auxiliary nurse midwife, a lady health visitor, a nurse or a midwife.

Around 81 per cent of children (aged 12-23 months) in Uttarakhand had received basic vaccinations for tuberculosis, diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus, polio and measles – a rise since the estimate of 57.7 per cent recorded in NFHS-4. Only 3.3 per cent of children in this age group had not received any vaccinations at all.

Prevalence of anaemia in children increased from 54.9 per cent in NFHS-4 to 58.8 per cent in NFHS-5. Of the men and women (aged 15-49 years) surveyed in the state, 42.6 per cent women and 15.1 per cent men were anaemic.

Among children under the age of five years, 27 per cent were reported to be stunted (too short for their age) and 13 per cent were reported to be wasted (too thin for their height).

As many as 89.7 per cent of women and 97.5 per cent of men in the state had heard of HIV/AIDS. However, the report states, only 24.5 per cent of women and 35.9 per cent of men had ‘comprehensive’ knowledge of it.

In Uttarakhand, for every 100,000 people, 123 were estimated to have medically treated tuberculosis. According to self-reports (questionnaires answered without researcher guidance), 1,375 women per 100,000 women, and 1,663 men per 100,000 men in the state had diabetes.

Among women between the ages of 18-49 years surveyed in the state, 18 per cent reported having experienced either sexual or physical violence and three per cent reported both sexual and physical violence. Only 15 per cent of women who had experienced such violence ever sought help.

Focus and Factoids by Swadesha Sharma.

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.