Proxy Reporting and Biasness in Reporting of Morbidity in India: Data from National Sample Survey on Morbidity

National Sample Survey (NSS) provides national and sub-national level information on morbidities and health care at regular intervals since its inception on 1953-54. In these surveys, information for all members of sample household was gathered either from head or a key informant of the household. This paper aims to explore the effect of proxy-reporting on population estimates of morbidity prevalence and to identify patterns of biases in these estimates due to proxy responses based on recent 60th round NSS data on morbidity and health care. In this round, information for 68 percent sample population was collected from proxy respondents. Proxies underreported morbidities with an overall morbidity prevalence of 81 per 1000 adult population compared with self-reported morbidity prevalence of 148. Proxy-responses in NSS on morbidity and health care introduce systematic biases, affecting national and regional estimates of morbidity prevalence. Suitable adjustment for proxy-responses should be made while estimating realistic population risks from NSS data.