District-Level Estimates of Childhood Malnutrition in India: Application of Small Area Estimation Technique Using Census and DHS Data

Swati Srivastava , International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS)

The Indian Health Service functions under a decentralized approach; however, the lack of district level statistics implies that local authorities are faced with difficulties in making policy decisions without relevant statistics. The Indian Demographic and Health Surveys provide a range of invaluable data at the regional/ national level; they cannot be used directly to produce reliable district-level estimates due to small sample sizes. This study uses small area estimation techniques to derive model-based district-level estimates of childhood stunting malnutrition in India by linking data from the 1998 IDHS and the 2000 Indian Census. The models indicate considerable variability in the estimates of stunting, wasting and underweight across the districts of India. The diagnostic measures indicate that the model-based estimates are reliable and representative of the district to which they belong.

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 Presented in Session 219. Statistical Advances in High Resolution Modeling for Health and Mortality Outcomes