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The Fertility and Reproductive Health Survey (FRHS) is a nationally representative survey conducted by Population Department (POD) of Ministry of Immigration and Population.

FRHS is a component of “Strengthening of Birth Spacing Programme” and is designed to provide detailed information on fertility, infant and child mortality, reproductive health, maternal mortality, awareness of sexually transmitted diseases and HIV/AIDS. It was carried out with the financial assistance from UNFPA.

The POD has conducted a similar survey named Population Changes and Fertility Survey (PCFS) in 1991 also with financial support from UNFPA and now it was responsible for the overall implementation of the FRHS survey including sample design, preparation of survey instruments, testing, training, field work, data processing and producing two reports.

The UNFPA Country Support Team (CST) for East and South East Asia and United Nations Statistical Division (UNSTAT) provided technical assistance, especially in sample design and procedure, questionnaire design, and data processing plan.

This preliminary report presents findings on several major topics covered by the survey. The report includes findings from both household and individual questionnaires.

The report contains a brief description of survey methodology and sample design, general background demographic characteristics together with some findings on fertility levels, some reproductive health indicators and reproductive intentions, contraceptive knowledge and use and levels of mortality.

Tables and figures are also presented wherever relevant. More detailed and in-depth analysis will be included in the final country report to be completed by the end of 1998 and thus results in this report should be considered provisional and subject to revision in the course of analysis for the final country report.

(1) To have assessed the knowledge, attitude and practice of the Reproductive Health / Birth Spacing (RH/BS)

(2) To have obtained the fertility and infant/child mortality trends and pattern

(3) To have obtained the base-line information on selected demographic and RH/BS indicators

(4) To have produced reports containing survey results analysis

(5) To have strengthened the capability of the Population Department to plan and carry out future surveys

The FRHS data will be useful to researchers and scholars interested in analysing trends in demographic and reproductive health parameters as well as maternal mortality and awareness of HIV/AIDS in Myanmar. It will also be useful to those conducting comparative national or
sub-national studies.

The 1997 FRHS utilised two questionnaires: a household questionnaire and an individual questionnaire. The content of these questionnaires is based on the 1991 Population Changes and Fertility Survey (PCFS) questionnaires which were designed similar to the core questionnaires of the World Fertility Survey (WFS) and model questionnaires (for low contraceptive prevalence countries) from the Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) adapted to suit the country's requirements and customs and culture.

For FRHS, questions on migration, occupation and own children of the ever-married women were deleted from the household questionnaire of PCFS. Some questions on knowledge of source of contraception, abortion, reproductive health, awareness of Sexually Transmitted Diseases and AIDS and maternal mortality added to the PCFS individual questionnaire.

The household questionnaire consisted of a single large sheet with four principal sections and was used to identify respondents eligible for the individual interview - ever-married women aged 15-49 who were usual residents of the household. Every eligible women identified in the sample area were interviewed with the individual questionnaire. The questionnaires were prepared in both Myanmar and English.

The Household Questionnaire was used to list every member of the household who usually lives in the household. Some census-type basic information was collected on the characteristics of each person listed including name, relationship to head of household, sex, age, mother’s line number for children under 10 years, marital status, school attendance and highest educational attainment.

It also includes some information on the household such as births and deaths in the household during the 12 months preceding the survey. In addition, information was collected about the dwelling unit itself such as source of water, type of toilet facilities, ownership of various consumer goods and materials used for the roof of the house.

(1) Respondent’s background

(2) Reproduction

(3) Contraception

(4) Pregnancy

(5) Breast feeding, immunisation and child health

(6) Marriage

(7) Fertility Preference

(8) Husband’s background and work

(9) Sexually Transmitted Diseases

(10) AIDS

(11) Maternal Mortality

Three pre-tests were carried out, two in September and October 1996 to test the questionnaires and the third one carried out in 2 states and 2 divisions in November of the same year to test questionnaires as well as training manuals, training methods, interviewing techniques, field work organisation etc.

Department staff were used as interviewers and supervisors in all the three pre-tests. Survey questionnaires and organization are finalized according to the findings of the pre-tests.

Supervisors and editors were personnel from POD. Interviewers were recruited from local staff of Immigration and National Registration Department under the same ministry. Domain controllers were senior officials from POD and 13 domain controllers were employed dividing some of the domains to
be under more than one supervision.

There were 25 supervisors, 25 editors and 75 interviewers, making up 25 teams of 1 supervisor, 1 editor and 3 interviewers. Due to the nature of questions and interviews, all the staff employed for the field work are females. The training were conducted by the senior officials of POD who are national experts and have survey experience and are the core personnel in preparation of this survey. The survey field work was carried out from March to May 1997 - a duration of 3 months.

Sr. No	State/ Division	Total Townships	Townships with selected sample segments	No. of selected segments
1	Domain 1	79	32	82
	1 Kachin State	18	8	15
	2 Kayah State	7	1	3
	3 Shan State	54	23	64
2	Domain 2	27	21	68
	4 Kayin State	7	4	18
	5 Mon State	10	10	33
	6 Tanintharyi Division	10	7	17
3	Domain 3	47	35	85
	7 Sagaing Division	38	31	79
	8 Chin State	9	4	6
4	Domain 4	28	26	86
	9 Bago Division
5	Domain 5	25	24	72
	10 Magway Division
6	Domain 6	30	30	103
	11 Mandalay Division
	Domain 7	17	15	42
7	12 Rakhine State
8	Domain 8	45	40	97
	13 Yangon Division
9	Domain 9	26	26	115
	14 Ayeyawady Division
	Total	324	249	750

FRHS was designed to produce estimates at the national and urban and rural levels. It was based on a two stage stratified cluster sample design.

Twenty-four inaccessible townships in border areas are excluded from coverage for the survey and are taken out of the frame. The excluded areas account for about one percent of the total population of the nation.

The sample for the covered territory is selected in accordance with strict probability procedure at each stage. The household counts at wards/village tracts as at 31-3-93 prepared by the local offices of Immigration and National Registration Department formed the sampling frame.

The sample has 750 primary sampling units (PSUs) (wards in urban areas and village tracts in rural areas) selected with probability proportionate to size. The sample PSUs are proportionately distributed among the states and divisions Table 1.1. The second stage is selection of compact land area segments of an average size of 30 households. All households in the selected segments
are interviewed with both household and individual questionnaires.

Of a total of 22684 households selected for the survey,
21742 (95.8 percent) were successfully interviewed. In
these households, 16042 eligible women were identified
from which 14817 interviews were completed resulting in
a response rate of 92.4 percent.

The main reason for non responses among these eligible women was the failure to find them at home in spite of repeated attempts. Many of them were away at work, sometimes away
at some other places which cannot be reached within a few
days. Response rates by region are presented in Table 1.2.

Sr. No	State/ Division	Household	Eligible Women
		Selected	Interview Completed	Response rate %	Selected	interview completed	Response rate %
1	Domain 1	2514	2377	94.6	1955	1712	87.6
	1 Kachin State	464	438	94.4	376	331	88
	2 Kayah State	94	93	98.9	67	63	94
	3 Shan State	1956	1846	94.4	1512	1318	87.2
2	Domain 2	2100	1928	91.8	1501	1344	89.5
	4 Kayin	580	525	90.5	399	359	90
	5 Mon State	998	916	91.8	745	671	90.1
	6 Taintharyi Division	522	487	93.3	357	314	88
3	Domain 3	2541	2408	94.8	1804	1720	95.3
	7 Sagaing Division	2343	2230	95	1675	1593	95.1
	8 Chin State	194	178	91.8	129	127	98.4
4	9 Domain 4	2555	2413	94.4	1688	1519	90
	Bago Division
5	10 Domain 5	2119	2054	96.9	1306	1216	93.1
	Magway Division
6	11 Domain 6	3033	2461	97.6	2076	1953	94.1
	Mandalay Division
7	12 Domain 7	1341	1320	98.4	1113	1021	91.7
	Rakhine State
8	13 Domain 8	3111	3012	96.8	2021	1925	95.2
	Yangon Division
9	14 Domain 9	3373	3269	96.9	2578	2407	93.4
	Ayeyawady Division
	Total	22684	21742	95.8	16042	14817	92.4

The survey indicates that the ratio of the number of eligible women (i.e. permanent resident of ever-married women of 15-49 years) per household was 0.74.

As there are variations in the response rate by region the results in this report are weighted to compensate for differences in the response rates.