FrontLines:
Demographic and Health Surveys Still Track Fertility
and
Health Trends After 30 Years
March 2004
When other countries or development agencies
want to understand how to help poor families
improve
health, reduce family size, or prevent diseases
such as HIV/AIDS,
they often turn to USAID’s Demographic
and Health Surveys (DHS).
During the past 30 years, the Agency supported more
than 250 such surveys. They were done by the DHS and its predecessor, the World
Fertility Surveys (WFS). Currently, 20 surveys are
under way.
USAID’s survey support began in the early
1970s. Population and reproductive health surveys
collected
detailed maternal and family health statistics
in five-year cycles in dozens of developing countries.
The surveys used standardized key questions and methodology,
thus allowing policymakers to monitor population and
health trends and understand what is behind them.
Surveys in a country are often repeated to observe
trends. The 2002–03 Indonesia DHS was the seventh
survey USAID has helped fund. The 2002–03
Indonesia DHS was cofunded by the Agency, but
mainly by the
Indonesian Government, which contributed with
the help of a World
Bank loan. Locally trained fieldworkers interviewed
nearly 40,000 urban and rural families.
By tagging such information, DHS data can illustrate
a problem, track its improvement or worsening, evaluate
program effectiveness, and allow reliable cross-country
comparisons.
The data help local governments and development
organizations, said Richard Cornelius, senior
policy advisor for
health at USAID’s Bureau for Policy and
Program Coordination. Cornelius, a demographer
by training,
joined USAID
in 1974 to work on WFS and later designed and
managed the DHS project until 1993.
“It highlights for national leaders the extent
of population and health-related problems facing
their countries. Often it’s one of
the few sources of data that give a fully national
picture on key indicators of health and social
well-being,” Cornelius said.
“The data also help international development organizations
like USAID see how one country compares to another,
and get a sense of the impact of health interventions
we’re funding,” he added.
The positive impact of birth spacing on the health
of women and children is one of the global lessons
learned from USAID’s
investment in surveys over more than three decades.
A demographic survey costs about $750,000, though
some cost more than $1 million. Most are done in
countries where USAID has Missions.
As capabilities and economic conditions improved,
countries such as Colombia, Mexico, and Thailand
are performing their own demographic and health surveys.
Today, a demographic survey takes 12–18 months
to complete. But when old mainframe computers were
still in use, it took up to five years to complete
the surveys under the WFS, the predecessor of DHS.
WFS, which ran from 1972–1984, completed surveys
in 41 developing countries and 20 developed countries.
At the time, the WFS was touted as the largest demographic
research project ever undertaken.
Access the March
2004 edition of FrontLines
[PDF, 2MB].
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