Question

In Community Needs Assessment approach as a part of the Reproductive & Child Health activities are set at the level of:

• A. Community
• B. Sub-centre
• C. Primary health centre
• D. District

Hint:

Frontline workers assess needs at the community and sub-centre level, but targets and resources under the RCH programme are fixed at the district level.

Answer 1

The Correct Option is D

This question separates two different steps in the RCH Community Needs Assessment approach, collecting the need data and fixing the targets from that data, and asks where the second step happens.

1. Community: This is where the raw need is present, families, pregnant women, and children live here, but this level does not fix official targets or allocate the programme budget.
2. Sub-centre: The ANM based at the sub-centre gathers the community needs assessment data from the field, but the sub-centre itself is not where targets are formally set.
3. Primary health centre: The PHC supervises several sub-centres and consolidates their data, acting as a link in the chain, but it is not the final level where resources are allocated under this approach.
4. District: Once need based data has climbed up from the sub-centres and PHCs, the district is the administrative level where it is compiled and used to fix targets and allocate resources for RCH activities, as described in preventive and social medicine texts.

So while the need assessment itself is a bottom up, grassroots exercise starting at the community and sub-centre, the actual fixation of targets and allocation of resources sits at the district level.

Let's summarize:

• Community and sub-centre: where local need data is gathered.
• District: where that data is used to fix targets and allocate resources for RCH.

So the correct level for target and resource fixation is the district.