Published on June 26, 2023
AHMEDABAD: The National Family Health Survey-5 (NFHS-5) results, which were out in 2022, had indicated that the state had 39.7% underweight children under five years of age, the second highest, whereas in stunting (less height compared to age) and wasting (less weight compared to age), the state ranked fourth and second worst among the major states.
A recent study analysed the phenomenon at the district level to understand the changes that took place between the two rounds of NFHS survey and found that the four major districts with urban population – Ahmedabad, Surat, Vadodara and Rajkot – had recorded a steeper rise in stunting, wasting, severe malnutrition and underweight categories compared to some of the tribal districts between these periods (2015-16 and 2020-21).
The comparison indicated that the prevalence of anaemia rose by 17% across Gujarat in children in five years, and 12% in teenage girls.
The study ‘Nutritional Indicators for Gujarat, Its Determinants and Recommendations: A Comparative Study of National Family Health Survey-4 and National Family Health Survey-5’ in journal Cureus got recently published. The study was conducted by Jimeet Soni, Faisal Sheikh, Somen Saha, and Deepak Saxena from Indian Institute of Public Health (IIPH) Gandhinagar, and Mayur Wanjari from Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College at Wardha.
Somen Saha, a professor at IIPH-G , said that the purpose is to provide constructive suggestions to effectively address the issue. “We have suggested some measures including declaring anaemia and malnutrition as public health challenges, focusing on non-iron deficiency anaemia, developing nutrition intelligence union based on deep data and analytics, listing high-priority talukas, preparing sub-district action plan and targeted strategy, and predictive modelling,” he said.
The overall analysis also indicated some positives between the two surveys including post-delivery care and early childhood care.
Parth Shastri Archive 