The Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) Program is responsible for collecting and disseminating accurate, nationally representative data on health and population in

developing countries A developing country is a sovereign state with a lesser developed industrial base and a lower Human Development Index (HDI) relative to other countries. However, this definition is not universally agreed upon. There is also no clear agreem ...

. The project is implemented by

ICF International ICF International, Inc. is a Reston, Virginia-based global consulting and technology services company, which provides a range of services for governments and businesses, including strategic planning, management, marketing and analytics. The compa ...

and is funded by the

United States Agency for International Development The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is an independent agency of the U.S. federal government that is primarily responsible for administering civilian foreign aid and development assistance. With a budget of over $27 b ...

(

USAID The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is an independent agency of the U.S. federal government that is primarily responsible for administering civilian foreign aid and development assistance. With a budget of over $27 bi ...

) with contributions from other donors such as

UNICEF UNICEF (), originally called the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund in full, now officially United Nations Children's Fund, is an agency of the United Nations responsible for providing humanitarian and developmental aid to ...

UNFPA The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), formerly the United Nations Fund for Population Activities, is a UN agency aimed at improving reproductive and maternal health worldwide. Its work includes developing national healthcare strategies ...

WHO Who or WHO may refer to: * Who (pronoun), an interrogative or relative pronoun * Who?, one of the Five Ws in journalism * World Health Organization Arts and entertainment Fictional characters * Who, a creature in the Dr. Seuss book '' Horton He ...

, and

UNAIDS The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV and AIDS (UNAIDS) (, ONUSIDA) is the main advocate for accelerated, comprehensive and coordinated global action on the HIV/AIDS pandemic. The mission of UNAIDS is to lead, strengthen and support an ...

. The DHS is highly comparable to the Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys and the technical teams developing and supporting the surveys are in close collaboration. Since September 2013, ICF International has been partnering with seven internationally experienced organizations to expand access to and use of the DHS data: Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health Center for Communication Programs; Program for Appropriate Technology in Health (

PATH A path is a route for physical travel – see Trail. Path or PATH may also refer to: Physical paths of different types * Bicycle path * Bridle path, used by people on horseback * Course (navigation), the intended path of a vehicle * Desire p ...

); Avenir Health; Vysnova; Blue Raster; Kimetrica; and EnCompass.

Overview

Since 1984, The Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) Program has provided technical assistance to more than 300 demographic and health surveys in over 90 countries. DHS surveys collect information on

fertility Fertility is the capability to produce offspring through reproduction following the onset of sexual maturity. The fertility rate is the average number of children born by a female during her lifetime and is quantified demographically. Fertili ...

and

total fertility rate The total fertility rate (TFR) of a population is the average number of children that would be born to a woman over her lifetime if: # she were to experience the exact current age-specific fertility rates (ASFRs) through her lifetime # she were t ...

(TFR),

reproductive health Sexual and reproductive health (SRH) is a field of research, healthcare, and social activism that explores the health of an individual's reproductive system and sexual wellbeing during all stages of their life. The term can also be further de ...

maternal health Maternal health is the health of women during pregnancy, childbirth, and the postpartum period. In most cases, maternal health encompasses the health care dimensions of family planning, preconception, prenatal, and postnatal care in order to ens ...

, child health,

immunization Immunization, or immunisation, is the process by which an individual's immune system becomes fortified against an infectious agent (known as the immunogen). When this system is exposed to molecules that are foreign to the body, called ''non-se ...

and

survival Survival, or the act of surviving, is the propensity of something to continue existing, particularly when this is done despite conditions that might kill or destroy it. The concept can be applied to humans and other living things (or, hypotheti ...

HIV The human immunodeficiency viruses (HIV) are two species of ''Lentivirus'' (a subgroup of retrovirus) that infect humans. Over time, they cause acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), a condition in which progressive failure of the immune ...

/ AIDS;

maternal mortality Maternal death or maternal mortality is defined in slightly different ways by several different health organizations. The World Health Organization (WHO) defines maternal death as the death of a pregnant mother due to complications related to pre ...

, child mortality,

malaria Malaria is a mosquito-borne infectious disease that affects humans and other animals. Malaria causes symptoms that typically include fever, tiredness, vomiting, and headaches. In severe cases, it can cause jaundice, seizures, coma, or death. S ...

, and nutrition among women and children

stunted Stunted growth is a reduced growth rate in human development. It is a primary manifestation of malnutrition (or more precisely undernutrition) and recurrent infections, such as diarrhea and helminthiasis, in early childhood and even before birth, ...

. The strategic objective of The DHS Program is to improve and institutionalize the collection and use of data by host countries for program monitoring and evaluation and for policy development decisions.

Surveys

The DHS Program supports the following data collection options: * Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS): provide data for monitoring and impact evaluation indicators in the areas of population, health, and nutrition. * AIDS Indicator Surveys (AIS): provide countries with a standardized tool to obtain indicators for the effective monitoring of national HIV/AIDS programs. * Service Provision Assessment (SPA) Surveys: provide information about the characteristics of health and family planning services available in a country. * Malaria Indicators Surveys (MIS): Provide data on bednet ownership and use, prevention of malaria during pregnancy, and prompt and effective treatment of fever in young children. In some cases, biomarker testing for malaria and anemia are also included. * Key Indicators Survey (KIS): provide monitoring and evaluation data for population and health activities in small areas—regions, districts, catchment areas—that may be targeted by an individual project, although they can be used in nationally representative surveys as well. * Other Quantitative Data: include Geographic Data Collection, and Benchmarking Surveys. *

Biomarker In biomedical contexts, a biomarker, or biological marker, is a measurable indicator of some biological state or condition. Biomarkers are often measured and evaluated using blood, urine, or soft tissues to examine normal biological processes, p ...

Collection: in conjunction with surveys, more than 2 million tests have been conducted for HIV, anemia, malaria, and more than 25 other biomarkers. * Qualitative Research: provides information outside the purview of standard quantitative approaches.

Data

The DHS Program works to provide survey data for program managers, health care providers, policymakers, country leaders, researchers, members of the media, and others who can act to improve public health. The DHS Program distributes unrestricted survey data files for legitimate academic research at no cost. Online databases include: STATcompiler, STATmapper, HIV/AIDS Survey Indicators Database, HIV Spatial Data Repository, HIVmapper, and Country QuickStats.

Publications

The DHS Program produces publications that provide country specific and comparative data on population, health, and nutrition in developing countries. Most publications are available online for download, but if an electronic version of the publication is not available, a hard copy may be available.

Countries

The DHS Program has been active in over 90 countries in

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...

Asia Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an are ...

Central Asia Central Asia, also known as Middle Asia, is a subregion, region of Asia that stretches from the Caspian Sea in the west to western China and Mongolia in the east, and from Afghanistan and Iran in the south to Russia in the north. It includes t ...

;

West Asia Western Asia, West Asia, or Southwest Asia, is the westernmost subregion of the larger geographical region of Asia, as defined by some academics, UN bodies and other institutions. It is almost entirely a part of the Middle East, and includes Ana ...

; and

Southeast Asia Southeast Asia, also spelled South East Asia and South-East Asia, and also known as Southeastern Asia, South-eastern Asia or SEA, is the geographical south-eastern region of Asia, consisting of the regions that are situated south of mainlan ...

Latin America Latin America or * french: Amérique Latine, link=no * ht, Amerik Latin, link=no * pt, América Latina, link=no, name=a, sometimes referred to as LatAm is a large cultural region in the Americas where Romance languages — languages derived f ...

and the Caribbean. A list of the publications for each country is available online at The DHS Program web site.

Special Focus Topics

HIV/AIDS

Since 2001, The DHS Program has worked in over 15 countries in

, Asia and Latin America and Caribbean conducting population-based HIV testing. By collecting blood for HIV testing from representative samples of the population of men and women in a country, the DHS Program provides nationally representative estimates of HIV rates. The testing protocol provides for anonymous, informed, and voluntary testing of women and men. The program also collects data on internationally recognized AIDS indicators. Currently, the main sources of HIV/AIDS indicators in the database are the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS), the

Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey The Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys (MICS) are household surveys implemented by countries under the programme developed by the United Nations Children's Fund to provide internationally comparable, statistically rigorous data on the situation of ...

s (MICS), the Reproductive Health Surveys (RHS), the Sexual Behavior Surveys (SBS), and Behavioral Surveillance Surveys (BSS). Eventually it will cover all countries for which indicators are available. The project also collects data on the capacity of health care facilities to deliver HIV prevention and treatment services.

Malaria

Since 2000, DHS (and some AIS) surveys have collected data on ownership and use of mosquito nets, treatment of fever in children, and intermittent preventive treatment of pregnant women. In recent years, additional questions on indoor residual spraying, and biomarker testing for anemia and malaria have been conducted. This has however not changed the trend in malaria infections thereby calling for more interventions by researchers and scientists.

Gender

The DHS Program researches and trains for integrating gender into population, health and nutrition programs and HIV/AIDS-related activities in the developing world. Questions on gender roles and empowerment are integrated into most DHS questionnaires. For countries interested in more in-depth data on gender, modules of questions are available on specific topics such as status of women, domestic violence, and female genital mutilation.

Youth

The DHS Program has interviewed thousands of young people and gathered information about their education, employment, media exposure, nutrition, sexual activity, fertility, unions, and general reproductive health, including HIV prevalence. The Youth Corner on the DHS website presents findings about youth and features profiles of young adults ages 15–24 from more than 30 countries worldwide. The Youth Corner is part of the broader effort by the Interagency Youth Working Group (IYWG) to help program managers, donors, national and local governments, teachers, religious leaders, and nongovernmental organizations (

NGO A non-governmental organization (NGO) or non-governmental organisation (see spelling differences) is an organization that generally is formed independent from government. They are typically nonprofit entities, and many of them are active in h ...

s) plan and implement programs to improve the reproductive health of young adults.

Geographic information

The DHS Program now analyzes the impact of geographic location using DHS data and geographic information systems (GIS). The DHS Program routinely collects geographic information in all surveyed countries. Using GIS, researchers can link DHS data with routine health data, health facility locations, local infrastructure such as roads and rivers, and environmental conditions.

Biomarkers

Using field-friendly technologies, the DHS Program is able to collect biomarker data relating to conditions and infections. DHS surveys have tested for

anemia Anemia or anaemia (British English) is a blood disorder in which the blood has a reduced ability to carry oxygen due to a lower than normal number of red blood cells, or a reduction in the amount of hemoglobin. When anemia comes on slowly, t ...

(by measuring

hemoglobin Hemoglobin (haemoglobin BrE) (from the Greek word αἷμα, ''haîma'' 'blood' + Latin ''globus'' 'ball, sphere' + ''-in'') (), abbreviated Hb or Hgb, is the iron-containing oxygen-transport metalloprotein present in red blood cells (erythrocyt ...

), HIV infection,

sexually transmitted diseases Sexually transmitted infections (STIs), also referred to as sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) and the older term venereal diseases, are infections that are spread by sexual activity, especially vaginal intercourse, anal sex, and oral ...

such as syphilis and the herpes simplex virus, serum retinol (

Vitamin A Vitamin A is a fat-soluble vitamin and an essential nutrient for humans. It is a group of organic compounds that includes retinol, retinal (also known as retinaldehyde), retinoic acid, and several provitamin A carotenoids (most notably ...

), lead exposure, high blood pressure, and immunity from vaccine-preventable diseases like measles and tetanus. Traditionally, much of the data gathered in DHS surveys is self-reported. Biomarkers complement this information by providing an objective profile of a specific disease or health condition in a population. Biomarker data contributes to the understanding of behavioral risk factors and determinants of different illnesses.

References

External links

Official website

STATcompiler
{{DEFAULTSORT:Demographic And Health Surveys Health informatics Bioinformatics Health surveys Social statistics data United States Agency for International Development 1984 establishments