Abstract:
This report assesses the quality of the birth
history data in 192 DHS surveys conducted
since 1990. The birth histories are the
source of the age-specific fertility rates,
the total fertility rate (TFR), and the under
5 mortality rates that are widely used to
describe levels, differentials, and trends in
fertility and child mortality in developing
countries. The assessment is based on three
criteria to identify potential omission of
births and/or deaths and three criteria to
identify potential displacement, or
misreporting, of date of birth, age at death,
or both. Extreme values should be viewed as
symptoms rather than a conclusive diagnosis
of poor data quality. The birth histories in
most DHS surveys appear to be of excellent
quality, although several surveys do show
symptoms of omission, displacement, or both.
With the selected indicators and criteria,
omission of births is usually at the level of
2 percent or less, and only rarely exceeds 5
percent. Displacement of births is also
usually 2 percent or less, and only rarely
exceeds 3 percent of births in the past 10
years. The omission of deaths is a higher
percentage; but usually less than 5 percent,
although it may exceed 10 percent in some
surveys. Displacement of deaths is usually
less than 5 percent, and almost never more
than 10 percent. With some unevenness across
regions, DHS-6 appears to be the phase of DHS
that had the lowest overall levels of
incomplete birthdates, flagged dates of
death, and omission and displacement of
births and deaths.