Hello everyone
I’m writing to confirm whether the DHS sibling survival history (the “Maternal Mortality Module,” collected in the individual recode files of the original DHS data) is included anywhere in IPUMS-DHS.
I’ve searched the variable index and haven’t found sibling-history variables (e.g., number of siblings, siblings’ survival status, age/date of death), so I wanted to check whether these are simply not harmonized, or whether I’m missing where to find them. If they aren’t currently available, is there any plan to add them in a future release?
Thank you for your help.
Best wishes, Nadia
Publications from The DHS Program (for example, DHS Survey Design: Maternal Mortality) state that in the maternal mortality module (and sibling mortality module) data, there are not enough cases to produce valid subnational mortality estimates, or mortality estimates disaggregated by other characteristics. The DHS Program advises that the mortality data are only suitable for estimating mortality rates at the national level. IPUMS DHS therefore does not provide the maternal mortality module data. We suggest that interested researchers use Statcompiler from The DHS Program to obtain national mortality estimates based on the DHS data.