The National Family Health Survey-6 (NFHS-6) is a large-scale, multi-round household survey that functions as India's premier data-driven framework for evidence-based policymaking. The survey is a concept, not an act or institution, designed to provide high-quality, district-level data on population dynamics, health, nutrition, and family welfare.
The NFHS was originally launched in 1992–93 to collect reliable, up-to-date information on fertility, family planning, and mortality, addressing the problem of a lack of comprehensive national health data. The sixth round, NFHS-6, was conducted during 2023–24.
The survey mechanism is coordinated by the International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS), Mumbai, as the nodal agency, under the stewardship of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW). For NFHS-6, the survey covered nearly 6.79 lakh households across 715 districts and fully adopted Computer-Assisted Personal Interviewing (CAPI) for data collection.
The NFHS-6 connects directly to the monitoring of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the evaluation of flagship government schemes like Ayushman Bharat and POSHAN Abhiyaan. Recent changes in NFHS-6 include the addition of new focus areas such as Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) coverage, Self-Help Groups (SHGs), digital literacy, and digital financial transactions. However, the initial fact sheet for NFHS-6 saw a reduction in key indicators from 131 in NFHS-5 to 101, with data on anaemia, sex ratio at birth, and sanitation missing from the headline release. Key findings showed significant progress, with institutional deliveries rising to 90.6% and full immunization coverage increasing to 87.1% for children aged 12–23 months.