NPC launches 2018 Nigeria Demographic, Health Survey
The National Population Commission (NPC) on Thursday officially launched the 2018 Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey (NDHS) Report in Lagos State.
The Acting Chairman of the commission, Bimbola Salu-Hundeyin, said in Lagos that the NDHS was the sixth Demographic Health Survey (DHS) conducted in Nigeria since 1990.
Salu-Hundeyin, represented by the commission’s Director in Lagos State, Mr Murphy Adigun, said the survey provides up-to-date estimates on basic demographic and health indicators.
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The acting chairman said that NPC worked in close collaboration with the National Malaria Elimination Programme (NMEP) under the Federal Ministry of Health in 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory.
She said that this was aimed at accomplishing the survey report.
According to her, a total of 41, 821 women, aged 15-49 in 40,427 households and 13,311 men aged 15-59 in one third of the sampled households were interviewed.
“It represents a response rate of 99 per cent of women and 99 per cent of men,” the NPC chief said.
Salu-Hundeyin said she was pleased to say that new innovative approaches were used in the conduct of the 2018 NDHS.
She said: “First, the anthropometry processes was improved to collect high quality height and weight measurement from women and children.
“A new biomarker checklist was introduced to ensure that no important tasks were missed.
“Interviewers also returned to household to re-measure children for flagged cases and random re-measurement for data quality checked.”
The acting chairman said she was pleased to inform all that these new improved processes piloted here in Nigeria, had been approved as standard procedures in DHS surveys by other nations, especially in Africa.
She said that another innovation was the inclusion of the DHS program’s disability module in the 2018 NDHS.
Salu-Hundeyin said, “this allowed the commission to collect information on disability status in Nigeria for the first time.”
She said that result of the survey also shows a number of significant outcomes.
