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Article History

Received: 26 November 2025

Accepted: 14 May 2026

First Online: 11 June 2026

Declarations

:

: The NFHS datasets are approved by recognised national and international ethics committees. The NFHS surveys are approved by the Institutional Review Board (IRB) of ICF International and by the Ethics Committee of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India. Therefore, it is not applicable for this analysis. The NFHS surveys follow ethical protocols consistent with the Declaration of Helsinki and relevant national guidelines. As this study uses secondary, anonymised datasets, no additional ethical approval was required. NFHS data are secondary, de-identified, publicly available datasets. Respondents’ consent is obtained by DHS prior to data collection.

: The study uses anonymised secondary data from NFHS, in which all personal identifiers have been removed. Consent for publication was obtained by the DHS Program at the time of data collection. Because no identifiable personal information is used, this requirement does not apply.

: The authors declare no competing interests.