Re-examining the association of birth interval and child health in India: a trend assessment

Kabir Pal, International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS)
Manoj Alagarajan, International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS)

India is among the countries having highest prevalence of underweight children in the world resulting in to dire consequences of mortality, morbidity, productivity and economic growth. The data for the present study is sourced from the three rounds of National Family Health Survey. It examines the trend and association between the birth interval and child health status in India using bi-variate and multivariate analysis. The mean birth interval is almost consistent in all the three rounds of the NFHS. But high fluctuations are seen in the birth interval according to different socio-economic characteristics categories in all the three rounds. The birth interval has constantly been increasing from NFHS-1 to NFHS-3. As far as the underweight percentage of the children is concerned it has declined from NFHS 1 to NFHS-3. Hence a strong relationship of birth interval and malnourishment has been observed.