scholarly journals Contraception for married adolescents (15–19 years) in India: insights from the National Family Health Survey-4 (NFHS-4)

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ijyaa Singh ◽  
Ankita Shukla ◽  
Jissa Vinoda Thulaseedharan ◽  
Gurpreet Singh

Abstract Purpose Despite the fact that marriage below the age of 18 years is illegal in India, a considerable number of females get married and start childbearing during their adolescent years. There is low prevalence of contraceptive methods and high unmet need for family planning (FP). Realizing this, new government programs have been launched to increase the uptake of sexual and reproductive health services among adolescents. However, evidence specific to this age group remains scarce. Aim and objectives The present study was conducted to assess the prevalence of modern contraceptives among married adolescents, and to determine its association with sociodemographic variables, health worker outreach, and media exposure to FP messages in India. Methods Data for this analysis was drawn from the fourth round of the National Family Health Survey (NFHS-4) conducted in India during 2015–16. The sample size is restricted to 13,232 currently married adolescent girls aged 15–19 years, who were not pregnant at the time of the survey. Bivariate and multivariate analysis were conducted to assess the levels of contraceptive use and its predictors among married adolescents. Results The use of modern contraceptives among married adolescents increased from 4 to 10% between 1992–93 and 2015–16. The uptake of modern contraceptives was found to be low among the uneducated, those residing in rural areas, among backward classes, those practising Hindu religion, women in the poorest wealth quintile, women without children, and those with no exposure to FP messages via media or health care workers. Among those who met health care workers and discussed FP issues with them, 34.11% were using modern contraceptives as compared to 11.53% of those who did not have discussions with health care workers. Conclusions The evidence suggests that contact with health care workers significantly influences the use of modern contraceptives. Further focus on increasing contact between married adolescents’ and health care workers, and improving the quality of counselling will protect adolescents from early marriage and pregnancy.

2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Balhasan Ali ◽  
Shekhar Chauhan

An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via the original article.


2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. e003717
Author(s):  
Phuong Hong Nguyen ◽  
Rasmi Avula ◽  
Lan Mai Tran ◽  
Vani Sethi ◽  
Alok Kumar ◽  
...  

ObjectivesExisting health and community nutrition systems have the potential to deliver many nutrition interventions. However, the coverage of nutrition interventions across the delivery platforms of these systems has not been uniform. We (1) examined the opportunity gaps between delivery platforms and corresponding nutrition interventions through the continuum of care in India between 2006 and 2016 and and (2) assessed inequalities in these opportunity gaps.MethodsWe used two rounds of the National Family Health Survey data from 2005 to 2006 and 2015–2016 (n=36 850 and 190 898 mother–child dyads, respectively). We examine the opportunity gaps over time for seven nutrition interventions and their associated delivery platforms at national and state levels. We assessed equality and changes in equality between 2006 and 2016 for opportunity gaps by education, residence, socioeconomic status (SES), public and private platforms.ResultsCoverage of nutrition interventions was consistently lower than the reach of their associated delivery platforms; opportunity gaps ranging from 9 to 32 percentage points (pp) during the pregnancy, 17 pp during delivery and 9–26 pp during childhood in 2006. Between 2006 and 2016, coverage improved for most indicators, but coverage increases for nutrition interventions was lower than for associated delivery platforms. The opportunity gaps were larger among women with higher education (22–57 pp in 2016), higher SES status and living in urban areas (23–57 pp), despite higher coverage of most interventions and the delivery platforms among these groups. Opportunity gaps vary tremendously by state with the highest gaps observed in Tripura, Andaman and Nicobar islands, and Punjab for different indicators.ConclusionsIndia’s progress in coverage of health and nutrition interventions in the last decade is promising, but both opportunity and equality gaps remained. It is critical to close these gaps by addressing policy and programmatic delivery systems bottlenecks to achieve universal coverage for both health and nutrition within the delivery system.


2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Tarun Shankar Choudhary ◽  
Akanksha Srivastava ◽  
Ranadip Chowdhury ◽  
Sunita Taneja ◽  
Rajiv Bahl ◽  
...  

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 335-340
Author(s):  
Ekta Belwal ◽  
Shalini Pandey ◽  
Supta Sarkar

Anemia is the most prevalent deficiency disease and one among the major nutrition related goals globally. Children and women of reproductive age are the most vulnerable groups for anemia everywhere. While there are various nutritional and non-nutritional factors causing anemia, Iron deficiency is the most prominent of them. In India, more than half population of preschool age children and reproductive age women is suffering from anemia. Indian government had started anemia prophylaxis efforts a half century ago and still continuing to battle with this ever prevalent disease to bring down its occurrence. National Family Health Survey is the large-scale survey conducted in India to provide high-quality data on health and family welfare and related emerging issues. The data provided not only helps in formulation, revision and monitoring of the policies and programs but in situating the development of India globally. Studying the time trend for anemia prevalence and other related parameters reported in NFHS surveys helps how well India has performed until now and how far is from its goal to become Anemia free country. Keywords: Anemia, iron deficiency, health survey, child health, maternal health.


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