The DHS Program User Forum
Discussions regarding The DHS Program data and results
Home » Topics » Wealth Index » Clarification on applying sampling weights in Stata using India NFHS-5
Clarification on applying sampling weights in Stata using India NFHS-5 [message #30908] Thu, 17 April 2025 14:18 Go to next message
Withadel is currently online  Withadel
Messages: 1
Registered: April 2025
Member
I am currently working with the India NFHS-5 Individual Recode (IR) dataset for a project analyzing maternal health service utilization. While going through the guide on sampling weights, I still have some doubts and would appreciate any clarification.

Context of my analysis:

Dataset: IAIR7DFL.DTA

Population of interest: women aged 1549 who had a live birth in the past 5 years

Main outcomes: number of ANC visits (categorical), institutional delivery (binary)

Software: Stata 17

I understand from the DHS documentation that v005 should be used as the weight variable, and that it needs to be divided by 1,000,000 before applying. However, I am still confused about how to properly specify this in the svyset command in Stata, and how clustering and stratification should be handled for India, which has a complex sampling structure.

I came across some posts and papers suggesting using v023 as the stratification variable instead of v022, especially for India. Could someone confirm which one is appropriate here?

Given that NFHS-5 has state-specific sampling frames and uses oversampling in some states/urban areas, is there any adjustment needed beyond this basic svyset structure? Or does DHS already account for that in v005?
Re: Clarification on applying sampling weights in Stata using India NFHS-5 [message #30966 is a reply to message #30908] Wed, 07 May 2025 04:10 Go to previous message
Wersed is currently offline  Wersed
Messages: 1
Registered: May 2025
Member
Use v005 as the weight (divide by 1,000,000), v021 for clustering, and v023 for stratification--not v022, which is less accurate for India. The weight already accounts for oversampling, so no extra adjustment is needed.

Previous Topic: Type of house
Goto Forum:
  


Current Time: Thu May 15 22:52:56 Coordinated Universal Time 2025