Households Participating in JSLC Child Health Module to Receive Token

Households with children, five years old and younger, participating in the anthropometry module of the Jamaica Survey of Living Conditions (JSLC) will receive a token.

This was announced by Acting Head of the Statistical Institute of Jamaica (STATIN) Labour Market and Welfare Statistics Unit, Nicole Allen, during a recent Jamaica Information Service (JIS) ‘Think Tank’ on the 2025 survey, which is being conducted in collaboration with the Planning Institute of Jamaica (PIOJ).

Ms. Allen explained that the anthropometry module will focus on assessing the nutrition and health status of children five years old and younger.

“We will be weighing children and measuring their height. That helps to determine stunting and wasting… these are things that are used to track the nutritional status of children,” she said.

Ms. Allen noted that, unlike previous years, questions about vaccinations and birth registrations have been omitted.

“Over the years, we found that we had near universal registration. So one of the changes that we’ve made to the 2025 survey is to not ask those questions, because one of the things we want to do is reduce respondents’ burden. But we’re going to focus on the nutritional status of children,” she explained.

According to Ms. Allen, anthropometric measurements will be conducted by trained supervisors.

“When the interviewer comes to the household and a child under five years old is identified, the interviewer schedules an appointment to have the supervisor return to the household and conduct the weighing and the measuring of the child. They are trained in the use of the scale and in the use of the measuring boards. They will know the proper way to do the measurement and also how to handle the child within the household,” she said.

“So, for the households where we have the children under five and we are asking to measure… we’re going give those households a token,” Ms. Allen stated.

The JSLC aims to survey 12,000 dwellings across all 14 parishes islandwide.