I am currently conducting a cross-country empirical study on population health and economic outcomes in Sub-Saharan Africa using the IPUMS DHS datasets.
While exploring the variables, I noticed that female anthropometric indicators (such as height and weight) are well-documented. However, I am having some trouble locating the corresponding variables for the male sample.
Could you please assist me with the following questions?
-
Are adult male anthropometric indicators (specifically height and weight) available in IPUMS DHS?
-
If so, what are the standard variable names (mnemonics) for male height and weight? I tried searching for terms like HEIGHTMN or WEIGHTMN but want to confirm if these are the correct or current codes, or if they are integrated under the household member recode (e.g., HWMHEIGHT).
-
Is there any specific unit of analysis I need to select on the IPUMS DHS website to ensure these male biomarker variables appear in the selection wizard?
Any guidance, documentation links, or variable names would be greatly appreciated! Thank you so much for your time and help.
Adult male anthropometric variables are available on the Household Members unit of analysis. These include HWMHEIGHT (“Height in centimeters”), HWMWEIGHT (“Weight in kilograms”), and HWMWTHTPCTRMDHS (“Weight for height percent of reference median”) among others. IPUMS DHS has harmonized these variables for a limited number of samples; for sub-Saharan Africa these samples include:
Ethiopia (2011, 2016)
Ghana (2014)
Lesotho (2009, 2014)
Libreria (2013)
Namibia (2013)
Rwanda (2010, 2014)
Sao Tome (2008)
Senegal (2010)
Sierra Leone (2013, 2019)
South Africa (2016)
Uganda (2006, 2011, 2016)
Zimbabwe (2010, 2015)
Adult male anthropometric variables are available in other DHS samples but have not yet been harmonized by IPUMS DHS. I shared your interest in these variables with my colleagues on the IPUMS DHS team to see if these variables might be added to additional samples in the future.
If you require data for samples that are not on this list, you can download the data directly from the DHS Program website (from the individual recode file) and merge it with an IPUMS DHS data extract (see the Linking IPUMS-DHS Data to DHS Files user guide for step-by-step instructions).
All available Male Anthropometry variables can be found using the variable selection drop-down menus under Topics → Biometrics → Male Anthropometry.
thank you！！！！！！！！！！！！！！！！