Demographic and Health Surveys Methodology - Measure DHS

In this example, HV000 to HV044 are “General” variables and HV201 to HV234 correspond to“Household Characteristics”. For each household member, a number of variables is selected (HVIDX,HV101, HV102, HV103. All household member variables can be included (if desired) along with thegeneral and household characteristic variables. The member-specific variables are renamed so that laterthe files will be appended correctly. In this example, only three household members are included, but thedifferent pieces of the program need to be repeated as many times as the maximum number of householdmembers specified by variable HV009.This type of file can now be used to determine the population distribution in the sample or any otherstatistic related to household composition. One special use is to calculate all women factors for evermarriedsamples as described in previous sections.The same principle used to create household member files, can be used to create children files out of thewomen flat or rectangular files. As mentioned earlier, the children file distributed by DHS only includeschildren born in the last five years. The reason is that variables related to prenatal/postnatal care andchildren’s health are only available for children born in the last five years. However, some analysis, suchas mortality rates for the last 10 years, require the women’s full birth history. Contrary to the householdmembers file where the number of members is variable across countries, the maximum number of birthsin all DHS files is constant (20) for all women. Variables BIDX$01-B16$01 to BIDX$20-B16$20 are thebirth history variables in DHS files and are always present in women files.In previous DHS phases (DHS-I to DHS-III), data on anthropometry and anemia for children and womenwas collected in the Women’s Questionnaire. In DHS-IV, that information is collected in the HouseholdQuestionnaire. Therefore, the anemia and height and weight data for women and children are distributedin the household flat or rectangular files. However, to facilitate the comparability across DHS phases theheight and weight and anemia-related variables were brought down from the household level to thewoman level. Variables V436 to V447 (women’s height and weight) and HWIDX to HW58 (children’sheight and weight) continue to be part of the DHS-IV woman’s file and are comparable with previousphases. Anthropometry and anemia variables for foster children and children whose mothers have died,are only present at the household level. The same is true for never-married women in ever-marriedsamples.Similarly to how the members file was created, it is also possible to create files for anthropometry andanemia for women and children out of the household flat or rectangular files. Once those files are created,the relationships shown in the table below can be established. In that table, the women and men are theoriginal files distributed by DHS. The children file can be either the DHS-distributed file or a children filecreated using the birth history.Members Match VariablesSecondary Files Based on Household DataHeight, Weight, and Anemiafor WomenHeight, Weight, and Anemiafor ChildrenBase HV001 + HV002 + HVIDX HV001 + HV002 + HA0 HV001 + HV002 + HC0Women V001 + V002 + V003 V001 + V002 + V003Children V001 + V002 + B16 V001 + V002 + B16Men MV001 + MV002 + MV003Members HV001 + HV002 + HVIDX HV001 + HV002 + HVIDXGuide to DHS Statistics 25 September 2003