South Asia DHS variable checklist

Getting started

Here we show the pre-requisite code sections. Run these at the outset to avoid errors. First we load the required packages.

easypackages::libraries(
  # Data i/o
  "here",                 # relative file path
  "rio",                  # file import-export
  
  # Data manipulation
  "janitor",              # data cleaning fns
  "haven",                # stata, sas, spss data io
  "labelled",             # var labelling
  "readxl",               # excel sheets
  # "scales",               # to change formats and units
  "skimr",                # quick data summary
  "broom",                # view model results
  
  # Analysis output
  "gt",
  # "modelsummary",          # output summary tables
  "gtsummary",            # output summary tables
  "flextable",            # creating tables from objects
  "officer",              # editing in office docs
  
  # R graph related packages
  "ggstats",
  "RColorBrewer",
  # "scales",
  "patchwork",
  
  # Misc packages
  "tidyverse",            # Data manipulation iron man
  "tictoc"                # Code timing
)

Next we turn off scientific notations.

options(scipen = 999)

Next we set the default gtsummary print engine for tables.

theme_gtsummary_printer(print_engine = "flextable")

Now we set the flextable output defaults.

set_flextable_defaults(
  font.size = 11,
  text.align = "left",
  big.mark = "",
  background.color = "white",
  table.layout = "autofit",
  theme_fun = theme_vanilla
)

Introduction

On this page we show the variable checklist of South Asian Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) datasets. This will be the primary document for viewing what variables are available for use in the DHS datasets in South Asia and across the countries. We check the variable availability from the raw data dictionaries and after that run the data pooling code.

Across all the checklists, we have dataset name in the table header row, variable label in the table col and variable name as records. If a variable is available in the dataset we give the variable name and if it’s unavailable we keep the records as missing.

Afghanistan variable checklist

The variable availability for Afghanistan is given below.

Table 1: Checklist of variables in Afghanistan DHS

Variable labels	AFDHS 2015
Birth history variables
Survival status of child	b5
Child's age at death (cmc)	b7
Child is twin	b0
Child's month of birth	b1
Child's year of birth	b2
Child's date of birth (cmc)	b3
Child's sex	b4
Preceding birth interval	b11
Social group variables
Religion
Caste
Ethnicity	v131
Language of questionnaire
Language of interview	v045b
Native language of respondent	v045c
Distance to healthcare facility	v467
Covered by health insurance	v481
Cluster altitude
Mother's anemia level
Respondent's weight in kg
Respondent's height in cm
Relationship to hh head	hv101
Sex of hh member	hv104
Age of hh member	hv105
Highest education of hh member	hv106
Sex of hh head	hv219
Age of hh head	hv220
Wealth index	hv270

Bangladesh variable checklist

The variable availability for Bangladesh is given below.

Table 2: Checklist of variables in Bangladesh DHS

Variable labels	BDDHS 1993	BDDHS 1996	BDDHS 1999	BDDHS 2004	BDDHS 2007	BDDHS 2011	BDDHS 2014	BDDHS 2017	BDDHS 2022
Social group variables
Religion	v130	v130	v130	v130	v130	v130	v130	v130	v130
Caste
Ethnicity
Language of questionnaire
Language of interview
Native language of respondent
Distance to healthcare facility

India variable checklist

The variable availability for India is given below.

Table 3: Checklist of variables in India DHS

Variable labels	IADHS 1992	IADHS 1998	IADHS 2005	IADHS 2015	IADHS 2019
Social group variables
Religion	v130	v130	v130	v130	v130
Caste
Ethnicity
Language of questionnaire
Language of interview
Native language of respondent
Distance to healthcare facility

Maldives variable checklist

The variable availability for Maldives is given below.

Table 4: Checklist of variables in Maldives DHS

Varmvble labels	MVDHS 2009	MVDHS 2016
Social group variables
Religion	v130	v130
Caste
Ethnicity
Language of questionnaire
Language of interview
Native language of respondent
Distance to healthcare facility

Nepal variable checklist

The variable availability for Nepal is given below.

Table 5: Checklist of variables in Nepal DHS

Variable labels	NPDHS 1996	NPDHS 2001	NPDHS 2006	NPDHS 2011	NPDHS 2016	NPDHS 2022
Social group variables
Religion	v130	v130	v130	v130	v130	v130
Caste
Ethnicity
Language of questionnaire
Language of interview
Native language of respondent
Distance to healthcare facility

Pakistan variable checklist

The variable availability for Pakistan is given below.

Table 6: Checklist of variables in Pakistan DHS

Variable labels	PKDHS 1990	PKDHS 2006	PKDHS 2012	PKDHS 2017
Social group variables
Religion	v130	v130	v130	v130
Caste
Ethnicity
Language of questionnaire
Language of interview
Native language of respondent
Distance to healthcare facility