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Welcome to the video session on working with DHS datasets. This video series is divided
into three parts. Part 1 will be discussing how to register for access to DHS datasets
online. Part 2 of this video series will discuss how to download datasets from the MEASURE
DHS website and finally Part 3 will demonstrate how to open DHS datasets in the software programs
Stata, SPSS and SAS. This video will be demonstrating Part 2 of
the video series: how to download datasets from the website. If you have not yet registered
for DHS data, you should return to Part 1 of the series before continuing forward with
this video. Usually within 24-48 hours of requesting data
access you should receive an email from archive@measuredhs.com. This email is very detailed email containing
instructions for how to download data from the website. Please read the full email as
it contains helpful links to the DHS recode manual and to other resources that will help
you in analyzing your data. For the purposes of this demonstration I am going to click
directly on the link to which takes me to the login page to download the data.
Once the page is loaded, you will then need to enter the email and password that you used
during the registration process. This page is your "My Dataset Account" page.
On the left, you will see links to personalize your account information. To the right you
will be able to download the datasets for your requested project, you can also modify
existing project descriptions, or you can create a new project. In some instances, data
users might have received an email asking for additional information concerning the
project description. This page is where you can modify your project and resubmit it for
approval if you were originally denied dataset access.
For this demonstration, we would like to download the data for the project entitled "Examination
of ITN use in Rwanda". If you have requested DHS data before under the same email address
you will see those projects listed as well. After selecting your project, you will then
select the country you requested. If you requested data from more than one country, you will
also see those countries listed in the dropdown. After selecting your project you will then
want to select the country that you requested and then find your specific survey year. For
this demonstration, I want to examine the 2010 Rwanda DHS.
Clicking on the name of the survey will take you to the "survey summary page", this page
contains the report in pdf format as well as fieldwork dates, sample size information,
and other survey characteristics To download the datasets you need to go back
to the data download page and then click under survey datasets
This page lists all the survey dataset files associated with the 2010 Rwanda DHS. While
this may seem like a daunting list let me explain how the file names are constructed.
For this demonstration, let us examine the first file highlighted in yellow under the
household recode category. Let's first look at the file rwhr61dt.zip
The first two characters RW represent the country code for Rwanda.
The third and fourth characters represent the dataset type. Below is a list of most
commonly used dataset types. To know which dataset type you should download depends on
your unit of analysis. For more information about which unit of analysis is best for your
research please check out the link to the DHS recode manual, which was included in your
dataset access email. For our example we are looking at the HR file
since ITN information is collected at the household level
The fifth character in the file name represents which phase of the DHS the survey was conducted
while the sixth character represents the release version. In our example, we are looking at
phase 6 of the DHS and release version 1, for the Rwanda DHS in 2010.
Finally, the last two characters in the file name represent the file format. As you can
see there are five formats that the data can be downloaded in. In our example we are looking
at a file with the last two characters DT this means it is in a format that is compatible
with Stata.
If you are confused right now, its ok, this video contains a lot of information. For an
easier reference, you can always go to the DHS homepage. Go to Data and then scroll down
to find File Types and Name. This page gives a more detailed description of how file names
are constructed. Let's look back to the list of datasets associated
with the Rwanda 2010 DHS, hopefully you now have a better understanding of what the different
file names mean, and which files to use for your particular analysis. Once you have decided
on which file you would like to download click on the file under the column "file name".
In this example, I am going to click on the link for the STATA file under the category
Household Recode. This link will open a download link where
you can then save the file to your computer. The download process will possibly look different
than what you are seeing on my screen depending on the type of internet browser you are using.
Once the file is downloaded, you are ready to start analyzing data in the software of
your choice. This concludes Part 2: How to download datasets
from the MEASURE DHS website. If you would like to learn more about how to open DHS datasets
in the software programs Stata, SPSS or SAS, please continue on to Part 3 of the video
series.