Misbah Ali

Dr. Vinod Kumar Paul, Member NITI Aayog on July 28, 2021 released the ‘National Guidelines for Data Quality in Surveys’ in the presence of Balram Bhargava, Director General of ICMR.

“We are delighted to release this valuable document entitled National Guidelines for Data Quality in Surveys and confident that these guidelines will help adopt best practices for generating good quality nutrition and health survey data,” Dr Balram Bhargava said.

It aims to provide comprehensive guiding principles and best practices for mitigating errors and biases that may occur during survey design, data collection and analysis, thereby ensuring data quality in surveys, specifically for demographic, health and nutrition surveys.

“National Guidelines for Data Quality in Surveys is a much-needed resource for all those undertaking demographic, health and nutrition surveys and will go a long way to improve quality of data collected in the country and elsewhere,” Dr. V K Paul said.

This initiative of the National Data Quality Forum (NDQF) aims to guide advanced data quality monitoring, process audits and analytics, and capacity building of data collection agencies and producers to improve the quality of demographic, nutrition and health surveys, ICMR stated in a press release.

According to the ICMR, the guidelines provide the steps to be followed during the three critical phases of field-based studies (preparatory, during, and post data collection). It also offers tips for applying different machine learning techniques in assessing the quality of surveys, tips on using technology, and essential checklists in following the operational procedures for ensuring data quality.

 “Many Government as well as Non-Government Organisations conduct a number of important surveys to collect data on health and nutrition status of citizens of India. These guidelines entitled National Guidelines for Data Quality in Surveys will be a useful resource for those who are involved in planning and execution of surveys and will help improve data quality and evidence-based decision-making,” Director of ICMR-NIMS, Dr. M Vishnu Vardhana Rao said.