Togo 2013 IDHS identifier from Household Recode doesn't match with that in Woman Recode

GLOBAL HEALTH
1

Hi. I am trying to link some records from IPUMS DHS Household Member Recode file to the Women’s recode file, I have records from Senegal 2015 and 2016, Benin 2017 and Togo 2013. The Togo 2013 idhshid in the household member recode do not match the with the women’s file version of that identifier. In the household member file there is “B” in the hhid identifier which makes the linking not possible.

The household member file:

togo2013_hh_id_issue_CHILD
togo2013_hh_id_issue_CHILD1041×266 76.2 KB

Since I am a new member I can only upload one image so I’ve copied the records for the women’s file below:

sample	  samplestr	idhshid            	hhid	psu	hhnum
togo 2013	76803	76803         1 1	1 1	    1	1
togo 2013	76803	76803         1 4	1 4	    1	4
togo 2013	76803	76803         1 4	1 4    	1	4
togo 2013	76803	76803         1 5	1 5   	1	5

I can’t find any documentation about what this B in the hhid and idhshid is or means and whether or not I can drop it to facilitate linking. Does anyone have thoughts/guidance?
Thank you!

2

Thank you for bringing this issue to our attention. The Bs in HHID and IDHSHID are used internally to account for blanks in the data, but they should not be appearing in data extracts. The IPUMS DHS team has been alerted of this issue and will release a fix with the next data update. For helping us fix this error, we would like to offer you an IPUMS mug as a token of our gratitude. Please reach out to us at ipums@umn.edu with an address that we can ship your mug to.

In the meantime, you can go ahead and remove these Bs in order to link the records. Alternatively, you can follow the DHS Program linking guidelines and use HV001 + HV002 (CLUSTERNOALL + HHNUMALL) from the household file and V001 + V002 (CLUSTERNO + HHNUM) from the women’s file for linking these records.

3

Wow! Thank you.

And thank you for the guidance for making the linking work!

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