Project funded primarily by USAID to assist government and private agencies in developing countries to conduct national sample surveys on population and maternal & child health. Implemented by DHS / Measure DHS+ / Macro International / Institute for Resource Development from 1984 to date. Data collection conceived as a follow-up to the World Fertility Survey. Data collected included health (especially maternal and child health), population, contraception, family planning issues, currently in 28 countries. Data was collected by sample survey at the household level in two phases: DHS-1 (1986-90) data is less extensive than DHS-2 (1991-date) and the two series were collected on a different methodological basis. Resulted in a series of publications and statistical datasets, including:
(a) Country reports: available in print in both full and summary formats
(b) Statistical datasets: country sets, corresponding to the printed country reports. The Measure DHS+ WWW gives details on available datasets, coverage, summaries of data, ordering methods (by tape, Bernoulli cartridge or disc) and supporting products. Datasets can be downloaded from the WWW site (by FTP, authorisation within 3 working days)
Datasets available online elsewhere via: (a) the Office of Population Research (OPR) at Princeton University (see separate entry): provides an annotated catalogue of DHS-1 datasets, but datasets themselves are only available to OPR members (b) the Population Studies Centre at the University of Pennsylvania (data on some African countries and Trinidad – see separate entry) (c) University of Michigan Population Center [data on Philippines] http://www.psc.lsa.umich.edu. (d) the Centre for Electronic Records of the US National archives (see separate entry) has the data for sale. Data also available on disc
(c) Guides to methodology
(d) Working papers, occasional papers, comparative studies
(e) Newsletter: full text on Measure DHS+ WWW