Hi. I have a question regarding the household interview time variables in IPUMS-DHS.
Household interview time variables HV801, HV802, and HV803 are available in DHS surveys starting in 2015. However, I noticed that the corresponding IPUMS-DHS variables INTSTARTHH, INTENDHH, and INTDURATIONHH are not available for Cameroon 2018.
I checked the original Cameroon 2018 DHS household data downloaded from the DHS Program, and these variables contain non-missing values. Could someone clarify why these variables are not included in the IPUMS-DHS version of the Cameroon 2018 data?
If these variables are not available in IPUMS-DHS for Cameroon 2018, would the recommended approach be to use the original DHS data and merge them with the IPUMS-DHS data using the household identifiers?
Thank you very much for your help!
Due to the large number of variables and samples across the DHS surveys, it is sometimes the case that variables included in one IPUMS DHS data release are not provided in a subsequent release even if the underlying DHS data is available. This appears to be the case with the household interview time variables that you mention. I have shared your interest in these variables with my colleagues so that they can looking into including these in the next data release.
You are correct that the data for these variables in the Cameroon 2018 survey are available directly through the DHS Program website. It is relatively straightforward to link records from the DHS Program data to IPUMS DHS. This user note outlines this process; for linking household records, the variable IDHSHID can be matched against a concatenation of the DHS Program variables SAMPLE ID and HHID.