For a national immunisation coverage survey, India is first divided into states, districts are then randomly selected within sampled states, villages are randomly selected within sampled districts, and finally households are randomly selected within sampled villages. This design is:

• A Stratified random sampling
• B Systematic random sampling
• C Cluster sampling
• D Multistage random sampling ✓

Explanation

Multistage sampling involves successive random sampling at each level of a hierarchy, moving from larger units down to the final sampling units, which matches this design exactly. Stratified sampling divides the population once into homogeneous strata and samples every stratum. Cluster sampling selects whole clusters and typically surveys everyone within them at a single stage. Systematic sampling picks units at fixed intervals. The presence of distinct stages is what separates multistage from simple cluster sampling.

Reference: Park's Textbook of Preventive and Social Medicine, 27th ed.

High-yield for: NEET PGINI-CETNExTFMGEUSMLEPLABMRCP

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