FAQs

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MEASURE DHS produces a wide variety of publications that provide country-specific and comparative data on population, health, and nutrition in developing countries. Based on the results of the Demographic and Health Surveys, the publications provide timely baseline data for use by policymakers and program managers in survey countries, as well as population and health organizations and researchers throughout the world.

They are free. MEASURE DHS is proud to provide all of its content absolutely free of charge.

Find the publications you want by:

searching on key words or using the Advanced Search 

browsing by publication type

browsing by publication country or region

For each publication, you will have one or more of the following options:

• View Abstract
• Download Portable Document Format (PDF)
• Order

View Abstract: In the publications summary page, the abstract is at the bottom of the page and provides a description of the publication.

Download PDF: In the publications summary page, under the Download Document green bar, click on the PDF icon to view the document in PDF, or save the PDF document to your hard drive. Note: you will need the free download Adobe Acrobat Reader installed in order to view PDF documents. If you are viewing the PDF in the web browser and you cannot view the PDF on the web, try downloading the PDF onto your computer or try these solutions.

Order: To order publications, go to your publications summary page and click on Order a Hard Copy. This will bring you to the shopping cart page, where you can view your selections before submitting your order.

You may continue to search and browse publications, keeping the items in your shopping cart until you are ready to check out. If you leave the website however, your shopping cart may be emptied out.

When you are ready to order your items, click on "Shopping Cart" if you are not already viewing the contents of your cart. To remove an item from your cart, click on "Remove" next to that item.

Click on Submit Order. You will need to enter some mailing information so that the publications can be delivered to you. Make sure to fill in the required fields (marked with asterisks *) and click on Submit. You should receive your order in 1–2 weeks depending on the quantity of publications requested.

You will see a page confirming that your order has been sent to DHS. It will list the shipping/contact information you entered and the publications ordered. Email reports@measuredhs.com or call 301-572-0958 if you have questions about your order.

If the GIS Team is not able to satisfactorily verify the coordinates, these clusters will be marked as missing GPS data. Clusters without coordinate information may be missing from the data set or located at latitude/longitude 0, 0. These clusters' SOURCE will be marked as "MIS". Every attempt is made to ensure that at least 95% of clusters have coordinate information.

Older datasets are provided as a dbf table. Most geographic information system (GIS) software can display the latitude and longitude data as points. More recent GPS data are provided as a shapefile projected using the WGS84 datum. A shapefile is an open standard and can be used with most GIS software.

The GPS data contains a cluster ID (DHSCLUST ) that corresponds to the cluster ID (hv001) in each of the survey datasets (household, individual, child, birth, etc.). You can link these data using DHS CLUST from the GPS data and hv001 in the survey datasets. Note that because many household and individuals are assigned the same cluster number, the GPS data will correspond to the survey data in a one-to-many relationship.

Every attempt is made to use the most accurate administrative boundaries when checking the data. However, using a generally accepted and commonly used standard is not always possible. All GPS data, even after geographic displacement, should be located within the survey country and within the assigned region. If your administrative boundaries are not identical to the ones the GIS Team used, there may be some clusters that are located across an administrative boundary.

The actual location of the cluster is displaced to protect the confidentiality of the survey respondents. The confidentiality agreement states that information will be kept strictly confidential. Because geographic location is considered personally identifiable information, these data must be treated in a way that ensures that respondents cannot be identified.

The data are randomly displaced up to 5 kilometres in rural areas and up to 2 kilometres in urban areas. A further 1 percent of rural clusters are displaced up to 10 kilometres. Urban or rural classifications are determined by the country's implementing agency. Geographically displaced data should remain located within the country boundaries and within the assigned DHS Region.

No, all survey data are geographically displaced in order to protect the privacy of survey respondents. All research both internal and external use the displaced data.

Internal studies have shown that the random geographic displacement does not have an effect on analyses conducted at the proper scale, i.e. DHS Region. Since the displacement is random, any error introduced to the data should not be significant. However, if the affect is highly localized, the error could be significant. For example, exact distances from the cluster coordinates should not be calculated.

We suggest that people consider catchment areas or buffer zones around the location of interest and consider chunks of distances such as 0-5 km, 6-10 km, etc. This helps reduce some of the error and avoids the pitfall of an exact distance measurement.

The survey design for DHS is not conducive for small area estimation. Households and respondents were selected in order to produce representative population estimates at the national and regional level only. Any sub-regional estimates are highly unreliable and likely to result in large standard errors.

The GPS data are available online after the survey data are released unless there are outstanding issues. The GPS data are only released after they have been thoroughly checked and evaluated by the GIS Team. Survey data may be available before GPS data. However, GPS data will never be available before survey data.

No, the sample frame is designed to ensure that the data are representative at the national and sub-national level, i.e. DHS region, only. The GPS data for the cluster can be used to extract additional information based on location but are not representative of the population living at that exact place.

The geographic datafile contains the DHS cluster ID, DHS country code, FIPS country code (CCFIPS), FIPS region name and code (if applicable), SALB region name and code (if applicable), DHS region name and code, source type (e.g. GPS, MIS, CEN, GAZ), urban or rural classification, latitude and longitude coordinates in decimal degrees, altitude in meters from either the GPS receiver and/or a digital elevation model (DEM), and the geographic datum. For more a more detailed description, see the README file included with the GPS data downloads.

Before you can download data, you must register as a DHS data user at http://www.measuredhs.com/register/reg.cfm. Dataset access is only granted for legitimate research purposes. You must then create a new research project request. The request must include a project title and a description of the analysis you propose to perform with the data. The GPS data are separate from the survey data and require a specific justification for how you will use these data. Additional approval is also required.

After your data request has been approved and you receive an email, sign-in to your DHS data user account at http://www.measuredhs.com/LOGIN.cfm. Select 'Download Datasets/Request Additional Countries for Existing Project(s)', choose your current project and click 'Go'. On the next page under 'Download Datasets for Authorized DHS Countries', select the country from the drop down and click 'View Surveys'. Click the Yes link under 'GPS Datasets' to download the survey year data.

Restricted datasets require the user to request special permission from the implementing organization before access can be granted. MEASURE DHS will provide you with the necessary contact information for requesting access permission.

No, the informed consent agreement assures survey respondents that their facility will not be identified. Geographic location is considered personally identifiable information and their release would violate the informed consent agreement.

All available GPS data reference the World Geodetic System 1984 (WGS84) and contain latitude and longitude values in decimal degrees.

Most surveys utilize a field GPS receiver. During the survey, teams collect the coordinates at the approximate center of the cluster. In the GPS data, the SOURCE will be marked as "GPS". If the country maintains robust geographic information about the primary sampling units, usually a census enumeration area, the GIS Team will match these data with the sample frame. These clusters' SOURCE will be marked as "CEN". As a last resort, external data sources are used to approximate a cluster's location using information about the nearest town. These clusters' SOURCE will be marked as "GAZ".

We do not always include all questions in the tables presented in the final reports or in STATcompiler. To assess whether or not a question was asked in a country, please refer to the questionnaire which is in one of the appendices in the final report. If the question was asked, this information is available in the dataset.

DHS surveys are generally carried out at the request of the USAID mission or another international funder in a given country. DHS surveys, therefore, are carried out only in less-developed countries, or countries receiving US foreign aid.

MEASURE DHS is a USAID-funded project implemented by ICF International (previously Macro International Inc. and ORC Macro). The project is housed at ICF International's office in Calverton, Maryland. Several other partner organizations partner on the DHS project as well. As of the fall of 2008, MEASURE DHS partners include Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health/Center for Communication Programs (Hopkins CCP), PATH, Futures Institute, CAMRIS, and Blue Raster.

 The country-specific questionnaire is located in the final report in one of the appendices.

After release of the final report, data files are recoded and often adjusted for inclusion in the STATcompiler. Data must be adjusted so that it is comparable with other country's data in the STATcompiler database. This can take several months.

Data for each country are recoded to match standard indicators which are presented in STATcompiler. For example, different countries have different categories for various levels of health care providers; thus, data on assistance at delivery and antenatal care provider must be adjusted and standardized so they can be compared across countries. Read the indicator definition very carefully in both the final report and STATcompiler to see what has been adjusted.

When we find a mistake in one of our reports, we issue an Errata sheet. The errata is posted on the website below the PDF of that report. We also update the electronic PDF so that all PDFs posted include any changes made. If you are using a new PDF, be assured that you have the most current version. If you have an old PDF or a hard copy of the report you may want to check our Publications page to see if an errata has been issued for the report.

From start to finish, our surveys take 18-24 months. This includes sample design, questionnaire design, pre-test and training, fieldwork, data analysis, report writing, and dissemination.

 The final report is generally available about a year after the beginning of fieldwork.

After release of the final report, data files are recoded and prepared for distribution. This process generally takes 2-6 months.

We have a searchable database of our surveys. You can search by country and the resulting table will indicate if there is a survey listed as "ongoing", this means there is a survey currently in the field or in the report-writing phase. We do not usually post that a survey is ongoing until the fieldwork has begun.