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IHS-President,
Dr. Prasanta Mahapatra, presented a paper on the Indian SRS, at the
Prince Mahidol Award Conference and Global Health Information forum,
at Bangkok, Thailand, from 27-30 Jan, 2010.
Abstract:
There are four major sources of vital statistics in India, namely; (a)
the Sample Registration System (SRS), (b) the Civil Registration
System (CRS), (c) Indirect estimates from the decennial census and (d)
Indirect estimates from the National Family Health Surveys (NFHS). The
SRS is the most regular source of demographic statistics in India. It
is based on a system of dual recording of births and deaths in fairly
representative sample units spread all over the country. The SRS
provides annual estimates of (a) population composition, (b)
fertility, (c) mortality, and (d) medical attention at the time of
birth or death which give some idea about access to medical care. The
population composition from SRS coupled with the decennial census
counts, enables fairly reliable estimate of population in the
intercensal periods. Average time to publication of SRS annual reports
is about two years. SRS estimates are generally valid and reliable for
the country as a whole and for bigger states with more than 10 million
population. Recently the sample size of SRS has been increased to
allow for estimates by natural divisions within the bigger states.
Evaluations during 1970s and 1980s showed that completeness of
recording of births and deaths by the SRS, was generally good, and
errors in recording of events minimal. However, systematic evaluation
of the SRS has not been taken up for quite some time. Indirect
estimates for 1990s and after suggests that registration completeness
has worsened and interstate variations widened. A pluralistic
evaluation framework is recommended.
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