National Workshop on Infant Mortality: The National workshop organized
by the Office of the Registrar General, India drew a high quality response,
both from government and non-government sectors, in India. Mr L K Advani,
the Union Home Minister, inaugurated the two-day workshop. A large number
of delegates (160) participating in the workshop presented their papers
on a number of contemporary issues pertaining to the Infant Mortality.
Mr K C Pant, Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission and Dr C P Thakur,
Union Health Minister addressed the valedictory session on the second
day. More details will follow in the next issue of the Newsletter.
Sample
Registration System (SRS) :
The
increasing acuteness of the dynamic population data set in India
and the
deficiencies in the statutory civil registration system greatly
intensified the need for quick and reliable estimates of current
birth and death
rates
on a current and continuous basis. The population census, though,
provides decadal growth rates; it is not able to provide a measure
of the
change in vital rates from year to year. To measure short?term
changes in
the
growth of population and to evaluate the impact of the family planning
programs, there is need for resorting to alternate sources of
data. Various
methods based on the application of sampling techniques have been
tried and tested in many developing countries. Such methods include
single
and
multi-round retrospective surveys and the dual record system. In
the absence of dependable vital rates from civil registration, the
Office
of the Registrar
General, India, initiated a scheme of sample registration of births
and deaths in India known as 'Sample Registration of Births and
Deaths in
India: Rural' in 1964?65 on a pilot basis. The scheme became operational
on full scale for both rural and urban areas from 1969-70 and
was popularly
known as 'Sample Registration System (SRS)'. The scheme envisages
a large-scale
demographic sample survey based on a dual record system.
The
main objective of SRS is to provide reliable annual estimates
of birth and death rates at the state and national levels for rural
and
urban
areas
separately. It also provides various other measures of fertility
and mortality.
The field investigation under Sample Registration System
consists of continuous enumeration of births and deaths in a sample
of villages/urban blocks by a resident part?time enumerator and an independent
six monthly retrospective survey by a full?time supervisor. The
data obtained through these two sources are matched. The unmatched and partially
matched
events are re-verified in the field to get an unduplicated count of correct
events. The advantage of this procedure, in addition to elimination
of errors of duplication, is that it leads to a quantitative assessment of
the sources of distortion in the two sets of records making it
a self?evaluating
technique.
Basic
structure of the survey :
The main
components of SRS are:
-
Base-line
survey of the sample units to obtain usual resident population of the
sample areas
-
Continuous
(longitudinal) enumeration of vital events pertaining to usual resident
population in the sample units by the part time enumerator;
-
An independent
half?yearly survey for recording births and deaths which occurred during
the half?year under reference and up?dating the House-list and Household
Schedule by the Supervisor;
-
Matching
of events recorded during continuous enumeration and those listed in
course of half? yearly survey;
-
Field
verification of unmatched and partially matched events.
Sample
design :
The
sample design adopted for SRS is a uni-stage stratified simple
random sample without replacement. In rural areas, each district
within
a state
has been divided into two strata, viz.
Strata
1 - Villages with population less than or equal to 1500 and
Strata 2 - Villages with population more than 1500. In order to
cover the village by one part-time enumerator, villages
belonging to the second strata (having population of more than
1500) were segmented into
two or more segments of equal size.
A
simple random sample of villages and segments has been selected,
from each of the two strata, without replacement in each State/Union
territory.
In
urban areas stratification has been done on the basis of size class
of
the towns/cities. The towns/cities were grouped into five classes:
(a) towns
with population below 20,000
(b) towns with population of 20,000 and more but less than 50,000
(c) towns with population of 50,000 and more but less than 100,000
(d)
towns with population of 100,000 and more but less than 500,000,
(e) cities with population of 500,000 and more but less than 1,000,000
and
(f) each city with population 1,000,000 or more, treated
as a separate
stratum. The sampling unit in urban area is a census enumeration
block.
A simple
random sample of these enumeration blocks has been selected without replacement
from each of the size classes of towns/cities in each State/Union territory.
There are 6,671 sample units covering about 6.2 million (or 62 lakh) population
in 1999, for rural and urban areas combined in all the states and union
territories where SRS is being implemented.
New Initiatives : To
enhance the utility of SRS data, keeping in view the needs of users,
the following two initiatives have been undertaken.
Collection of additional data in SRS : Special
schedules have been canvassed during July-December, 2001 to collect
additional data on 'Proof of age,
registration of births and determining the residential status of the
mother during pre and postnatal period'. The report analyzing the additional
data will be brought out separately.
Integration
of Survey of Causes of Deaths (Rural) in SRS : The Survey
of Causes of
Deaths (Rural) has been merged with Sample Registration System from
1st January 1999 to give more impetus covering both rural and urban
areas.
The technique of causes of deaths reported will remain the same
as "post
death verbal autopsy". The analysis of data on causes of
deaths as collected in SRS will be presented in a separate volume
of the SRS
Annual
Report - Causes of Deaths - 1999.
List
of SRS Publications :
-
SRS
Bulletin (Published twice a year)
-
Sample
Registration System, Statistical Report (Annual Publication)
-
SRS
Based Abridged Life-Tables (Published once in two years)
-
Survey
of Causes of Death (Rural) (Annual Publication)
-
Compendium
of India's Fertility and Mortality Indicators, 1971-1997.
