© 1994 Oxford University Press
other |
A Computer Simulation of Household Sampling Schemes for Health Surveys in Developing Countries
* Tropical Health Epidemiology Unit, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine Keppel St., London WC1E 7HT, UK
** UNICEF, Uganda Country Office PO Box 7047, Kampala, Uganda
Centre for International Child Health, Institute of Child Health 30 Guilford St., London WC1N 1EH, UK
Current address: SA3PH, The World Bank 1818 H St. NW, Washington, DC 20433, USA
BACKGROUND: Cluster sample surveys of health and nutrition in rural areas of developing countries frequently utilize the EPI (Expanded Programme on Immunization) method of selecting households where complete enumeration and systematic or simple random sampling (SRS) is considered impractical. The first household is selected by choosing a random direction from the centre of the community, counting the houses along that route, and picking one at random. Subsequent households are chosen by visiting that house which is nearest to the preceding one.
METHODS: Using a computer, and data from a survey of all children in 30 villages in Uganda, we simulated the selection of samples of size 7, 15 and 30 children from each village using SRS, the EPI method, and four different modifications of the EPI method.
RESULTS: The choice of sampling scheme for households had very little effect on the precision or bias of estimates of prevalence of malnutrition, or of recent morbidity, with EPI performing as well as SRS. However, the EPI scheme was inefficient and showed bias for variables relating to child care and for socioeconomic variables. Two of the modified EPI schemes (taking every fifth house and taking separate EPI samples in each quarter of the community) performed in general much better than EPI and almost as well as SRS.
CONCLUSIONS: These results suggest that the unmodified EPI household sampling scheme may be adequate for rapid appraisal of morbidity prevalence or nutritional status of communities, but that it may not be appropriate for surveys which cover a wider range of topics such as health care, or seek to examine the association of health or nutrition with explanatory factors such as education and socioeconomic status. Other factors such as cost and the ability to monitor interviewers' performance should also be taken into account.
Received 1 June 1994
CiteULike 
Connotea 
Del.icio.us What's this?
This article has been cited by other articles:
|
|
 |
|
  M. E. Fernandez, A. Gonzales, G. Tortolero-Luna, J. Williams, M. Saavedra-Embesi, W. Chan, and S. W. Vernon Effectiveness of Cultivando La Salud: A Breast and Cervical Cancer Screening Promotion Program for Low-Income Hispanic Women Am J Public Health, May 1, 2009; 99(5): 936 - 943. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
 |
|
 J. L. Vanden Eng, A. Wolkon, A. S. Frolov, D. J. Terlouw, M. J. Eliades, K. Morgah, V. Takpa, A. Dare, Y. K. Sodahlon, Y. Doumanou, et al. Use of Handheld Computers with Global Positioning Systems for Probability Sampling and Data Entry in Household Surveys Am J Trop Med Hyg, August 1, 2007; 77(2): 393 - 399. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
 |
|
 E. T Luman, A. Worku, Y. Berhane, R. Martin, and L. Cairns Comparison of two survey methodologies to assess vaccination coverage Int. J. Epidemiol., June 1, 2007; 36(3): 633 - 641. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
 |
|
 Z Wadud, H Kuper, S Polack, R Lindfield, M R Akm, K A Choudhury, T Lindfield, H Limburg, and A Foster Rapid assessment of avoidable blindness and needs assessment of cataract surgical services in Satkhira District, Bangladesh Br J Ophthalmol, October 1, 2006; 90(10): 1225 - 1229. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
|
|
K. Bostoen and Z. Chalabi Optimization of household survey sampling without sample frames Int. J. Epidemiol., June 1, 2006; 35(3): 751 - 755. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
 |
|
 R. C. Palmer, M. E. Fernandez, G. Tortolero-Luna, A. Gonzales, and P. D. Mullen Correlates of Mammography Screening Among Hispanic Women Living in Lower Rio Grande Valley Farmworker Communities Health Educ Behav, August 1, 2005; 32(4): 488 - 503. [Abstract] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
|
|
P. Milligan, A. Njie, and S. Bennett Comparison of two cluster sampling methods for health surveys in developing countries Int. J. Epidemiol., June 1, 2004; 33(3): 469 - 476. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
 |
|
 S. S Morris, C. Carletto, J. Hoddinott, and L. J M Christiaensen Validity of rapid estimates of household wealth and income for health surveys in rural Africa J Epidemiol Community Health, May 1, 2000; 54(5): 381 - 387. [Abstract] [Full Text]
|
|