Sociology 699J: Surveys in Developing Countries

National Family Health Survey

The two National Family Health Surveys (NFHS) are large-scale, multi-round surveys conducted in representative samples of households throughout India. The first National Family Health Survey (NFHS-1) was conducted in 1992-93. The survey collected extensive information on:

• population,
• health, and
• nutrition, with an emphasis on women and young children.

The second National Family Health Survey (NFHS-2) was conducted in 1998-99 in all 26 states of India. We will focus on NFHS-2 because it added features on:

• the quality of health and family planning services,
• domestic violence,
• reproductive health,
• anemia,
• the nutrition of women, and
• the status of women.

The questionnaires can be read/downloaded as Adobe pdf files:

• The household questionnaire (87K)
• The women's questionnaire (289K)
• The village questionnaire (66K)

The web pages for the NFHS are: http://www.nfhsindia.org
The report and documentation for wave 2 can be found at: http://www.nfhsindia.org/india2.html.

The NFHS is a collaborative project of the International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS), Mumbai, India; ORC Macro, Calverton, Maryland, USA and the East-West Center, Honolulu, Hawaii, USA. NFHS was funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) with supplementary support from United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF). IIPS collaborated with a number of Field Organizations (FO) for survey implementation. Each FO was responsible for conducting survey activities in one or more states covered by the NFHS. Technical assistance for the NFHS was provided by ORC Macro and the East-West Center.

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