Gender inclusivity in India's National Family Health Survey

The Correspondence by Vanishree Joseph and N V Madhuri1Joseph V Madhuri NV How to make India's National Family Health Survey more gender-sensitive.Lancet. 2022; 4001511 Summary Full Text Full Text PDF Scopus (3) Google Scholar is misinformed. The authors state that data from India's latest National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5) generate evidence for policy making only from men's perspectives and that each couple receives only one survey. Both statements are not true. The survey includes separate questionnaires for women and men. The questionnaire for women is designed specifically to provide gender-relevant information on topics such as women's access to and control of household resources, empowerment, experience of domestic violence, fertility, family planning, nutrition, and maternal and child health. The questionnaire for men focuses on a smaller number of topics related to men's lives. Women are interviewed only by female interviewers and men are interviewed only by male interviewers. The interviews are done in privacy to the extent possible to ensure that responses are not affected by other household members. It is simply not true that the NFHS-5 misses to a large extent women's perspectives and outcomes, as the authors state. The NFHS-5 questionnaires were based on the standard questionnaires of the Demographic and Health Surveys Program in 2018, but they were extensively revised by the survey's Technical Advisory Committee in India, which includes relevant Indian Government ministries, universities, international development partners, and other key stakeholders. In the NFHS-5, 724 155 women aged 15–49 years and 101 839 men aged 15–54 years were interviewed.2International Institute for Population SciencesICFNational Family Health Survey (NFHS-5), 2019–21: India. International Institute for Population Sciences, ICF, Mumbai2021Google Scholar Indian women's voices and lived experiences form the majority of the information provided by all NFHS surveys, including the NFHS-5. We declare no competing interests. How to make India's National Family Health Survey more gender-sensitiveIndia's five rounds of the National Family Health Survey (NFHS) have provided large datasets with which to monitor progress on household sanitation, health and nutrition of women and children, and even the empowerment status of women. Whether these data accurately represent the condition and position of women in India is questionable. Full-Text PDF Gender inclusivity in India's National Family Health Survey – Authors' replyIn our Correspondence,1 we did not question why women are excluded from the inquiry of the National Family Health Survey (NFHS); rather, we questioned why women are denied their epistemic authority and whose interests are served when interviewing women as part of the NFHS.2 The whole process of production, processing, and presentation of data needs to be looked at from women's perspectives. Full-Text PDF