NFHS-6 says no to inclusion : why are the disability questions missing?
Vaishnavi Jayakumar
The International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS) tasked by India’s Health Ministry, to conduct the National Family Health Survey (NFHS), an important pan-Indian survey that influences health policy making, has quietly dropped the questions on disability (and anaemia and who knows what else!) from the upcoming NFHS-6 scheduled to commence on 3 July 2023.
Despite frequent meetings with DEPwD, DGHS, NHSRC from February 2023, by the disability sector's representatives, with the aim of improving on NFHS-5's questions on disability; both disability and anemia components have been dropped on flimsy grounds. We have been presented with a fait accompli without the courtesy of an intimation.
Additionally, not only has there been no civil society representation in the Technical Advisory Committee, the 4 questionnaires (household, woman, man, biomarker) are not yet in the public domain, though training is on in full swing.
Do insist that essential information sought in the past is continued with NFHS-6. Send the attached representation by email and remind our representatives, that it's a question of inclusion that key characteristics are not dropped.
While the questions on disability, introduced in NFHS-5 on the request of the Social Justice Ministry, require extensive discussion and expansion to reflect a range of disabilities, they must at the very least, at this late stage, be restored.
Regards,
Team DRA.