Neonatal mortality rate surges in U’khand
DEHRADUN: Neonatal mortality rate, spousal violence, physical violence during pregnancy, sexual violence till age of 18 years, anaemia among children and obesity rate among men and women has increased in Uttarakhand, according to the first-phase data of the National Family Health Survey (NFHS) 5 for 2019-20.
The percentage of overweight children under 5 years has also increased from 3.5% to 4.1 % in the state, it has been revealed in NFHS 5 released by the union ministry of health and family welfare on Wednesday.
The comparison in the data of NFHS 5 (2019-20) and NFHS 4 (2015-16) revealed the trends on various health and socioeconomic parameters in the hill state. The neonatal mortality rate (number of infant deaths less than 29 days after birth) has increased from 27.9 % in NFHS 4 to 32.4 % in NFHS 5 in the state while at the national level the situation has improved, with NNMR decreasing from 29.5 % to 24.8 %.
The infant mortality rate (IMR) and under-five mortality rate (Under-5 MR) has also seen a marginal improvement in the state. The IMR has decreased from 39.7% to 39.1%, while Under-5 MR has declined from 46.5% to 45.6%. The trend on these two indicators is much better at the national level where the IMR has decreased from 40.7% to 35.2%, while Under-5 MR has declined from 49.7% to 41.9%. The report also shows that obesity rate has increased in both men and women in the state in the age category 15 to 49 years. In case of men, the obesity rate has increased from 17.7 % to 27.1 %, while women the obesity rate has increased from 20.4 % to 29.7 %.
The percentage of ever-married women in the age bracket 18-49 years who have ever experienced spousal violence has increased from 12.7 % to 15.1 %, while The percentage of ever-married women (18-49 years) who have experienced physical violence during pregnancy has increased 1.4 to 2.1 %. The percentage of young women in age bracket 18-29 years who experienced sexual violence by age 18 has increased from 0.1 to 0.3 %.
The overall percentage of anaemic adult men (15-49) and adult women has come down, but the percentage of anaemic children in the age category (15-19 years )has increased from 22.2 to 27.6 %.
The men in Uttarakhand are also reporting higher levels of hypertension and sugar levels compared to women. The report reveals that 31.8 % men in the state have elevated blood pressure (More than 140 systolic 90 diastolic) or are taking medicine to control blood pressure. In case of women, it has been found that 22.9 % of them have elevated blood pressure (More than 140 systolic 90 diastolic) or are taking medicine to control blood pressure. Around 7.6 % of men in the state have been found to have very high blood sugar levels (more than 160), while the percentage of women with very high sugar levels has been found to be 5.6 % The indicators related to nutritional status of children have shown some improvement. The percentage of children under 5 years who are stunted (height-for-age) has come down from 33.5 to 27.0. The percentage of children under 5 years who are wasted (weight-for-height) has come down from 19.5 to 13.2. The percentage of children under 5 years who are underweight (weight-for-age) has decreased from 26.6 to 21.0%. Due to the Covid-19 situation and the imposition of lockdown, NFHS-5 fieldwork in phase 2 was conducted in two parts in the state-from January 7, 2020 to March 21, 2020 prior to the lockdown and from December 5, 2020 to March 31, 2021 post lockdown by Research and Development Initiative (RDI) Pvt Ltd Information was gathered from 12,169 households, 13,280 women, and 1,586 men in the state, according to the NFHS 5 report.