Muthuramalingam, M. R.
Muraleedharan, V. R.
Article History
Received: 22 February 2023
Accepted: 23 June 2023
First Online: 26 June 2023
Declarations
:
: The current study is an analysis of the data collected by the National Family Health Survey—5 (NFHS-5) of India also called Demographic Health Survey VII (DHS-VII, 2019–21). The NFHS-5 (DHS-VII, 2019–21) survey was reviewed for ethical clearance by the Institutional Review Board (IRB) of ICF (Project Number—190308.0.001.00, Project Name: DHS/2019–20 India National Family Health Survey). The project description and the supporting materials were reviewed and the IRB considered the project as “The Activity is Not Research or Not Human Subjects Research” due to the activity being “Public health surveillance requested/authorized by a public health authority”. The NFHS-5 India final report states that, “The protocol for the NFHS-5 survey, including the content of all the survey questionnaires, was approved by the International Institute for Population Sciences, Mumbai (IIPS)—Institutional Review Board and the ICF’s Institutional Review Board. The protocol was also reviewed by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)” (page.3 of the NFHS-5 final report—International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS) and ICF. 2021. National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5), 2019–21: India. Mumbai: IIPS). ICF IRB ensured that the survey complies with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services regulations for the protection of human subjects (45 CFR 46), while IIPS-Mumbai, the host country IRB ensured that the survey complies with laws and norms of the nation. Moreover, Informed consent was obtained from the NFHS-5 survey participants and data is publicly available with no identifiable information about the survey participants. Being an analysis of the survey data of NFHS-5 which is conducted with required ethical approvals, no ethical approval was required for this study. The data was downloaded from the Demographic Health Survey Program after registration and obtaining permission for analysis. All methods were carried out in accordance with relevant guidelines and regulations.
: Not applicable
: The authors declare no competing interests.