Assessment of the Quality of Data on Health and Nutrition in the DHS Surveys, 1993-2003. DHS Methodological Reports 6

摘要

The eleven years from 1993 through 2003 spanned two important phases of the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) project known as DHS III and MEASURE DHS+. During this interval, 81 surveys of women and their children were conducted in 47 different countries. A majority of the surveys (43) and countries (27) were in sub-Saharan Africa. The remaining surveys were in Latin America and the Caribbean, and in South Asia and Southeast Asia, with a few in Central Asia, Western Asia, and North Africa. One of the most important objectives of the DHS project is to provide information about the health of women of reproductive age and young children. The purpose of this methodological report is to provide an overview of the quality of the maternal and child health data collected during DHS III and MEASURE DHS+. It is important to note that this assessment is not a response to any concerns, either general or specific, raised by users of the data. It is probably fair to say that within the general community of users, there is a general sense that the data are of very high quality. Rather, it is part of a routine monitoring process. It is desirable to conduct occasional checks and comparisons on the quality of data across surveys. There have been no comprehensive assessments of these data since DHS I and DHS II. In this investigation it is not possible to compare responses with true values, or even to compare them with responses in a second interview of the same respondent. When a response is outside of a plausible range, then it can be inferred that the response is incorrect, but in general the quality of data can only be assessed at an aggregate level using indicators that are likely to be associated with incorrect responses.