Pakistan Demographic and Health Survey launched

National Institute of Population Studies (NIPS) on Wednesday launched Pakistan Demographic and Health Survey (PDHS) 2006-07 with initial funding of $1.5 million provided by USAID. Addressing the launching ceremony here, Dr Saeed Shafqat, Executive Director NIPS said that UNFPA and Unicef are providing logistic support.
The survey will cover all the four provinces including Fata and Fana, he said. The survey is designed to provide information to policymakers for programme interventions based on realistic estimates, he added.
"The PDHS will be the first ever national survey to provide reliable data on maternal mortality rate (MMR) at national level. It will also collect data on the direct and indirect causes of maternal and child death especially related to birth complications," he said.
Dr Saeed further said that the Federal Bureau of Statistics (FBS) is providing guidelines for compilation of survey data. Over the years, NIPS experts remained engaged with individuals, experts, institutions and policymakers to build a broad consensus on the design of the survey, he said.
He said that NIPS had organised three technical committee meetings, attended by over 40 experts, who provided valuable insights and inputs for the survey.
"The Pakistan Demographic and Health Survey (PDHS) 2006-07 is being undertaken to address the monitoring and evaluation needs of maternal health and population welfare programmes", he said.
The NIPS Executive Director said that LUMS, NIPAS and Planning Commission have collaborated with NIPS in successfully completing the survey. He also lauded support of the Ministry of Population Welfare and Health Ministry and the respective steering and technical committees.
Dr Donya Aziz, Parliamentary Secretary, MoPW said that the survey is mainly aimed at the collection of reliable and quality data on a number of health and population welfare indicators relevant to the Millennium Development Goals and the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP).
"The survey also aims at investigating factors that impact maternal and neonatal morbidity employing 250 professional women. Over 90 percent of these young women have a master's degree and NIPS, by recruiting these women for training and survey, has contributed towards provision of income generation, alleviation of poverty and empowerment of women," Donya said.
Donya said that PDHS also includes awareness of HIV/AIDS, source of household drinking water, information about rural communities, prevalence and treatment of fever and cough among children under five, causes of death, childhood vaccination coverage rate, knowledge of tuberculosis and means of transmission, household socio-economic status and wealth index.
The preliminary report of the survey is expected by May 2007, and the final report by November 2007, she said. NIPS will ensure that the data from the survey are widely disseminated and used at provincial level, she said. The three-week training on PDHS 2006-07 envisages a massive exercise to impart training to around 250 supervisors, interviewers, data and task-oriented training and NIPS has recruited 29 teams of field personnel, she said.