Quality of data on low birth weight in India

Mukesh Ravi Raushan, International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS)
Kailash Chandra Das, International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS)

Birth is biological but the processes involved in it is socio-cultural. In stead of spending millions of funds the quality of data is not improving as it should be; weight at birth among Indian children is not reported properly. The percentage of live births whose birth weight was reported varies in three round of Indian version of DHS-National Family Health Surveys. Why and how do the data vary, what are the characteristics affects reporting? How this reporting does fluctuate in North and South Indian states of NFHS-survey. The four major states reported only 1174 in north and 521 in one states of south in India. What are the factors which influence the reporting, if this puzzle is solved the impact of child health on later life outcomes can be improved effectively. Binomial regression analysis is utilized to see the effect of factors on the reporting of the cases.