Integrated Demographic and Health Series (IDHS)

描述(由申请人提供)：人口与健康调查(DHS)，包括来自90个发展中国家的260项具有国家代表性的家庭调查，是关于发展中国家紧迫的健康和人口问题的主要信息来源。尽管国土安全部具有明显的可比性，但研究人员压倒性地使用这些数据进行单一调查分析。造成这种情况的原因有几个：使用多个国土安全部调查时，文件难以处理；调查问题随着时间和国家的不同而不同；国家以下区域的可比性往往难以评估。此外，当前的工具无意中引诱研究人员进入一些关于可比性的毫无根据的假设，同时导致他们远离其他有效的比较。人口与健康综合丛书将开发综合数据、传播软件和相关元数据，使国土安全部数据的比较分析大大简化。这些数据将通过一个创新的用户界面免费传播，这将改善搜索、发现、研究设计和数据访问。IDH将减少研究人员重复工作的浪费，消除常见错误，使研究结果更容易复制，并促进在许多研究领域进行复杂和强大的新比较分析。这项工作可分为六项具体任务：(1)开发用户友好的基于网络的数据访问工具，以便研究人员能够挖掘国土安全部数据的相对潜力。(2)在交叉调查和具体变量的基础上提供查阅文件的途径。(3)创建搜索和发现工具，使研究人员能够在调查中定位变量。(4)在不损失信息的情况下协调跨时间和空间的可变代码，并(只要可能)协调国家以下地区的地理代码。(5)制作工具，使用户能够利用国土安全部复杂结构中嵌入的丰富信息，轻松构建定制变量，例如尚存的女孩子数量或被调查者配偶的年龄。(6)为所有国土安全部数据编制结构一致的元数据。IDH将开启对发展中国家最丰富的数据源之一的访问，并将为在全球范围内对卫生、人口统计学和经济学进行比较研究开辟新的领域。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS), including 260 nationally-representative household surveys from 90 developing countries, are the principal source of information on pressing health and demographic issues in the developing world. Despite the explicitly comparative nature of DHS, researchers have overwhelmingly used these data to conduct single-survey analyses. There are several reasons for this: the documentation is unwieldy when using multiple DHS surveys; survey questions vary over time and across countries; and sub- national regional comparability is often difficult to assess. Furthermore, current tools inadvertently lure researchers into some unwarranted assumptions about comparability while leading them away from other valid comparisons. The Integrated Demographic and Health Series (IDHS) will develop integrated data, dissemination software, and associated metadata that will make comparative analyses of DHS data dramatically easier. The data will be disseminated without cost through an innovative user interface that will improve search, discovery, research design, and data access. IDHS will reduce wasteful duplication of researcher effort, eliminate common errors, make findings easier to replicate, and facilitate sophisticated and powerful new comparative analyses in many research domains. The work can be divided into six specific tasks: (1) Develop user-friendly web-based data access tools so researchers can exploit the comparative potential of DHS data. (2) Provide access to documentation on a cross-survey and variable-specific basis. (3) Create search and discovery tools to allow researchers to locate variables across surveys. (4) Harmonize variable codes across time and space, without loss of information, and (whenever possible) harmonize sub-national geographic codes. (5) Produce tools allowing users to easily construct customized variables that capitalize on rich information embedded in the complex structure of DHS data, such as the number of surviving female children or the age of the respondent's spouse. (6) Compile consistently structured metadata for all DHS data. IDHS will unlock access to one of the richest data sources for the developing world, and will open up new terrain for comparative investigation of health, demography, and economics in a global context.