Vanuatu Demographic Health Survey 2013

The 2013 Vanuatu Demographic and Health Survey (VDHS) is a national sample survey designed to provide information on population, family planning, maternal and child health, child survival, AIDS and sexually transmitted infections (STIs), reproductive health, nutrition, disability and child labour and child discipline in Vanuatu.

The DHS involves interviewing a randomly selected group of women who are between 15 and 49 years of age. These women will be asked questions about their background, the children they have given birth to, their knowledge and use of family planning methods, the health of their children, awareness of AIDS and sexually transmissible diseases, and other information that will be helpful to policy makers and administrators in health and family planning fields.

Similar questions will also be asked of all men 15 years and over in half of the sample households.

The Vanuatu National Statistics Office (VNSO) in collaboration with Ministry of Health (MOH) served as the implementing agencies for the DHS. The VNSO took responsibility for operational matters including planning and conducting fieldwork, processing of collected data and organizing the writing and distribution of reports. The VNSO furnished the necessary central office space for survey personnel and undertook to secure transport for the data collection activities. Staff from the VNSO were responsible for overseeing the day-to-day technical operations including recruitment and training of field and data processing staff and the supervision of the office and field operations.

The overall organization and control of the VDHS rests on the Head of VNSO/Director of Health who acts as Project Directors. The Project Director was responsible for the appointment of the project coordinator who then was responsible for recruiting the supervisors and interviewers for the DHS.

The Project Coordinator, with the support from the Director, were responsible for overseeing the day-to-day technical operations including recruitment and assisting in training of field workers and data processing staff and the supervision of the office and field operations.

The Project Coordinator also took charge of all the logistical issues associated with the fieldwork. This involves determining which areas team supervisors and interviewers will be working in and how the field materials will be distributed and collected during the maximum of (12 weeks) of fieldwork.

Financial support for the DHS were provided by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), UNICEF and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) while the Secretariat of the South Pacific Community (SPC) provided financial support through technical assistance during different stages of the project.

SURVEY OBJECTIVES

The main objective of the 2013 Vanuatu Demographic and Health Survey (VDHS) is to provide current and reliable data on fertility and family planning behavior, child mortality, adult and maternal mortality, children's nutritional status, the use of maternal and child healthcare services, and knowledge of HIV and AIDS.

Specific objectives are to:
.....1. collect data (at the national level) that will allow the calculation of key demographic rates;
.....2. analyze the direct and indirect factors that determine the fertility level and trends;
.....3. measure the level of contraceptive knowledge and practice among women and men by method, urban-rural residence and region;
.....4. collect high-quality data on family health, including immunization coverage among children, prevalence and treatment of diarrhea and other diseases among children under 5years of age
.....5. maternity care indicators (including antenatal visits, assistance at delivery, and postnatal care);
.....6. collect data on infant and child mortality;
.....7. obtain data on child feeding practices, including breastfeeding, and collect 'observation' information to use in assessing the nutritional status of women and children;
.....8. collect data on knowledge and attitudes of women and men about sexually transmitted infections (STIs), HIV and AIDS, and evaluate patterns of recent behavior regarding condom use;
.....9. collect data on knowledge and attitudes of women and men about tuberculosis; and
....10. collect poverty information to determine levels of hardship among children and adults.

This information is essential for making informed policy decisions and planning, monitoring, and evaluating programmes on health-both with respect to general health, and reproductive health in particular-at the national level, and in urban and rural areas.

A long-term objective of the survey is to strengthen the technical capacity of government organizations to plan, conduct, process and analyze data from complex national population and health surveys. Moreover, the 2013 VDHS provides national, rural and urban estimates regarding population and health that are comparable with data collected in similar surveys in other Pacific DHS pilot countries and other developing countries.

The final version of the 2013 DHS data, VNIQ55.DAT is the edited version of the raw data captured by the Data Entry Operators during the Data Entry Stage.

The DHS application creates new datafiles while it goes through the different stages of processing and saves these files for reference.

1. VNIQ51.dat - this is the initial raw data which concatenates all the datafiles of each EA.
2. VNIQ52.dat - this is generated after the recoding of the 'Other' responses.
3. VNIQ53.dat - this is generated after the execution of the secondary edits.
3. VNIQ54.dat - this is generated after the final imputations are included in the data.
4. VNIQ55.dat - the final edited version of the raw data and is generated after the execution of the 'Anthrop' program.

Recoded Datafile

1. VNIR51.dat - this is the final recoded data for the individual (women) questions.
2. VNMR51.dat - this is the final recoded data for the Mens questions

The dictionary files for these datafiles include:

1. VNIQ51.dcf - dictionary for the raw data (VNIQ51.DAT, VNIQ52.DAT, VNIQ53.DAT, VNIQ54.DAT, VNIQ55.DAT)
2. VNIR51.dcf - dictionary for the recoded women datafile
3. VNMR51.dcf - dictionary for the recoded men datafile

The preliminary report tables generated immediately after the completion of the batch editing are generated from the TGIQ55.DAT

The tables for the 15 Chapters are generated from the recoded datafiles.

THIS DOCUMNETATION ONLY PROVIDES METADATA OF THE FINAL RAW DATAFILE, TGIQ55.DAT.

THE RECODED DATAFILES TGIR51.DAT AND TGMR51.DAT ARE ATTACHED AS SEPARATE FILES WITH THEIR RELEVANT METADATA DESCRIPTIONS. USERS WHO NEED TO KNOW IN MORE DETAILS ON THE RECODE PROCEDURES CAN REFER TO THE STANDARD RECODE MANUAL IN THE DHD TOOLKIT PREPARED BY MEAURE DHS.

The scope of the Vanuatu 2013 DHS include:

INDIVIDIUAL/HOUSEHOLD
......basic demographic characteristics of individuals in a particular household dwelling, including age, sex, residence, marital status, educational attainment, eligibility and disability
......basic household caharacteristics of the private dwellings, including sanitation, water, electricity, households materials and household wealth ownership

WOMEN

......women characteristics and background, reproduction, contraception, pregnancy & post-natal care, child immunization, marriage & sexual activity, fertility, economic activity, HIV/AIDS, Malaria and other health issues.

MEN

......men's background, reproduction, contraception, marriage & sexual activity, fertility preferences, employment & gender roles, HIV/AIDS, Malaria and Other health issues

CHILDREN

......child labor, child discipline, disability, blood pressure, weight, height measurement, vaccination & immunization.

* Collection start: 2013
* Collection end: 2013