DHS Overview
Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) are nationally-representative household surveys that provide data for a wide range of monitoring and impact evaluation indicators in the areas of population, health, and nutrition.
DHS Survey Types
There are two main types of DHS Surveys:
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Standard DHS Surveys have large sample sizes (usually between 5,000 and 30,000 households) and typically are conducted every 5 years, to allow comparisons over time.
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Interim DHS Surveys focus on the collection of information on key performance monitoring indicators but may not include data for all impact evaluation measures (such as mortality rates). These surveys are conducted between rounds of DHS surveys and have shorter questionnaires than DHS surveys. Although nationally representative, these surveys have smaller samples than DHS surveys (2,000–3,000 households).
DHS Survey Topics
Information on DHS Indicators are available for the following topics:
- Anemia - prevalence of anemia, iron supplementation
- Child Health - vaccinations, childhood illness
- Education - highest level achieved, school enrollment
- Family Planning knowledge and use of family planning, attitudes
- Female Genital Cutting - prevalence of and attitudes about female genital cutting
- Fertility and Fertility Preferences - total fertility rate, desired family size, marriage and sexual activity
- Gender/Domestic Violence - history of domestic violence, frequency and consequences of violence
- HIV/AIDS Knowledge, Attitudes, and Behavior - knowledge of HIV prevention, misconceptions, stigma, higher-risk sexual behavior
- HIV Prevalence - Prevalence of HIV by demographic and behavioral characteristics
- Household and Respondent Characteristics- electricity, access to water, possessions, education and school attendance, employment
- Infant and Child Mortality - infant and child mortality rates
- Malaria - knowledge about malaria transmission, use of bednets among children and women, frequency and treatment of fever
- Maternal Health - access to antenatal, delivery and postnatal care
- Maternal Mortality - maternal mortality ratio
- Nutrition - breastfeeding, vitamin supplementation, anthropometry, anemia
- Wealth/Socioeconomics - division of households into 5 wealth quintiles to show relationship between wealth, population and health indicators
- Women's Empowerment - gender attitudes, women’s decision making power, education and employment of men vs. women
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