Rapid Survey on Children/RSOC: Main Findings
Rapid Survey on Children/RSOC: Main Findings
Question : The Rapid Survey on Children carried out jointly by UNICEF and Ministry of Women and Child Development has recently been carried out. Discuss its main findings.
About RSOC
- RSOC will strengthen data system on women/child development in line with nationwide household cum facility based survey in 28 states and Delhi.
- This survey provides level of chosen indicators at state and national level
- The indicators emphasise the well being of children below the age of 6 years and their mothers
- It covers various aspects of child development, maternal care, education for 5 to 24 year olds and more
- Early childhood and enabling environment such as access to potable drinking water and basic sanitation are also studied by the survey
- Survey also maps the ICDS program for infrastructural facilities, awareness and utilisation of 6 services by target groups
- Respondents of the survey were EMW/ever married women aged 15 to 49, currently married women aged 15 to 49 pregnant at the time of the survey, heads of certain households and anganwadi workers in selected AWC
Selection of primary sampling unit/PSU was based on the NFHS 2005-2006
- PSUs were selected through Probability Proportion Size with replacement from each PSU,selection of 26 households was conducted through systematic random sampling in the way that 20 households from those having children below 6 years of age and 6 households from other households were selected
- All AWC within the selected PSUs were part of the sample
- Around 2655 rural and 1497 urban PSUs were covered
- RSOC was conducted among 105,483 households and 5630 Anganwadi centres through 210,000 interviews
- For the compilation of nutritional status, measurement of height and weight of children aged 0 to 4 years totalling 90,000 and around 28,000 adolescent girls between 10 to 18 was collected across all states
- Greater than 167 exclusive health investigators were trained for conducting this survey
- The fieldwork was completed within 23 weeks by 167 survey teams and 188 listing teams
- Survey was conducted on CAPI mode
Main Findings of the Survey
- The only states which have lowered the proportion of underweight adolescent girls are Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Tripura and Uttarakhand according to RSOC
- While some states have made considerable progress in combating child malnourishment, despite high growth, other states have not been successful in doing so
- Within developed states, Gujarat was the only one to be below par with the national average in reduction of child stunting cases and underweight children
- Nearly all Indian states have performed poorly in lowering the number of underweight adolescent girls
- UP has the highest level of stunting of child growth and development
- Over 50% of the children under the age of 5 are underdeveloped in UP, indicating their height is greater than 2 SD less than expected height for their age within the population
- Jharkhand has the highest number of underweight children below the age of 5 indicating their weight for age is greater than 2 SD less than what is expected
- As far as the best performing state for lowering child malnourishment and stunting is concerned, Kerala leads the way while Manipur and Mizoram have the lowest number of underweight children
- The capital city of Delhi and NE state Mizoram have reduced child stunting at the most rapid rate between 2004-2005 and 2013-2014.
- 2004-2005 was the year when the last official National Family Health Survey was conducted
- Though MP and Bihar have high levels of children who are underweight, each of these states has reduced the numbers at faster rates along with HP
Facts and Stats
- In significant turnaround from the earlier trends, no state has reported an increase in the proportion of underweight or stunted children
- RSOC survey also shows that at national level, stunting and child malnourishment is more in rural areas at 41.7% and less in urban areas at around 32.1%.
