Integrated Demographic and Health Survey Data for Population Health Research

University Of Minnesota, Minneapolis MN

Investigators

Linked publications & trials

Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT The NICHD-funded IPUMS Demographic and Health Surveys (IPUMS DHS) project vastly simplifies comparative health analyses, democratizing research by providing free, easy-to-use data for researchers of all skill and resource levels. IPUMS DHS is an ideal tool for climate change and health (CCH) research because it includes data on many climate-related health outcomes important to NICHD. To date, however, it has focused on health rather than climate change. Only eight percent of the research listed in the IPUMS DHS bibliography addresses CCH, revealing the immense untapped potential for new research that can be unleashed with supplemental funding. This supplement leverages IPUMS DHS to achieve the full promise of CCH research with the following aims: ● Supplemental Aim 1. Extend IPUMS DHS to enable CCH research on malaria. IPUMS DHS includes standard DHS surveys, but it does not yet include the DHS Malaria Incidence Surveys (MIS) that include most information on malaria, a major killer of children and a disease highly susceptible to weather conditions. To extend CCH research to malaria, we will incorporate DHS MIS data into IPUMS DHS. ● Supplemental Aim 2. Empower users to flexibly link climate data with IPUMS DHS variables and increase climate-relevant variables in IPUMS DHS. We will disseminate GPS coordinates so users can link their own geospatial, climate, and meteorological variables to IPUMS DHS microdata and create summary variables, such as Minimum Dietary Diversity, important for understanding causal pathways between climate change and health. ● Supplemental Aim 3. Create a Climate Change and Health Launchpad website with robust support tools for rigorous and reproducible CCH research using IPUMS DHS. To ensure IPUMS DHS is fully and appropriately exploited for CCH research, we will create a website with accessible instructional tools, including foundational videos, tutorials, comprehensive guides, and model open-source code with detailed instructions for study-specific modifications. This supplement will greatly enhance the power of IPUMS DHS for CCH research by providing a powerful set of new variables designed to illuminate pathways between climate change and health and robust technical support tools for groundbreaking research by analysts from across the globe.