Trends Of Adult Height in India Using National Family Health Survey Data: A Systematic Review

Abstract

The national family health survey (NFHS) is a multi-round, large scale, survey conducted throughout India in a customary sample of households. It was first conducted in 1992-93, till then five surveys have been conducted. The survey was done using four types of questionnaires namely Men’s, Women’s, Biomarker, and household. The survey was funded by many international Funding agencies likeUnited States Agency for International Development (USAID), United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) etc. In India department of Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MOHFW) has delegated the International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS), Mumbai as a nodal agency for mutual support in the survey. Each survey of NFHS has two definite goalsi.ei) to anticipate data on family welfare and health for program and policy purposes and ii) to contribute an information on important family welfare and emerging health issues. Systematic review was conducted as per PRISMA guidelines, we carried out an extensive electronic search of PubMed, Google and Google Scholar to identify published studies on trends in adult height using NFHS India data. Out of a total 43 potential studies 38 were excluded and 5 relevant studies were used for final review. There is a decrease in average adult height in India. Despite of genetic, non-genetic factors like social, nutritional, and environmental plays a very important role in adult height.