Last month, the Institute of Economic Growth (IEG) team, along with a team from OP Jindal Global University working on the NIHR-funded Fragmentation Project, began a household survey of 1800 households in the state of Meghalaya. They are also consulting with the Indian Institute of Public Health, Shillong and received approval begin after a series of meetings with the state government representatives.

The objective of this survey is to understand the burden of healthcare on households, whether or not they have protection offered via health coverage schemes,  the reduction in out-of-pocket expenditure due to such coverage, and possible reasons for not being covered by such schemes or not being able to use the existing schemes.

An expanded team will take on this ambitious task, including research manager Dr. Shreyansh Raizada, field supervisor Yimi Marbaniang, field investigators Diblinicy Wanniang, Ebannylla Sangriang, Alfred Doloi, Wanpynhunlang Nongpluh, Matthew Momin, and Isaac A Sangma with Professor Mayur Trivedi (Azim Premji University) consulting. 

The team will use Kobo Toolbox to prepare the survey and collect data. Survey data will be used for a number of proposed research protocols for the second half of the HFACT project across all policy themes.