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HIV Testing - Nigeria [message #26429]

Mon, 20 March 2023 10:30

MVG
Messages: 1
Registered: March 2023

Member

The HIV testing variables in the 2018 Standard DHS for Nigeria are all blank. We could find the data in 2013 DHS datafile. Why are these variables blank? Is there a way for us to request this data from DHS? Or is there another datafile that includes these variables?

Here is the list of variables we are interested:

V781 Ever been tested for HIV

V826 Last time tested for HIV

V826A Months ago most recent HIV test

V827 Last HIV test: on your own, offered or required.

There are other variables that are also blank in 2018 Standard DHS such as V763D-G and D101F-G. The variable labels in SPSS have NA before them. What does NA mean?

Thank you!

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Re: HIV Testing - Nigeria [message #26446 is a reply to message #26429]

Tue, 21 March 2023 09:40

Janet-DHS
Messages: 901
Registered: April 2022

Senior Member

Following is a response from DHS staff member, Tom Pullum:

Go to the questionnaire in an appendix to the main report and see whether the questions for those variables were included in the survey. If the variables are missing, it is almost certainly because the questions were omitted. Decisions about what questions to include in the questionnaire are primarily up to the in-country steering committee and are not made by DHS staff.

With very few exceptions, all the data that have been collected have been made available. We do not have a closet where we hide data.

NA or na in a variable label means "not applicable" and is used when the relevant question for a standard variable has been omitted from a survey, and all the values of the variable have been coded with an NA code (in the Stata data files, that's a dot). For data processing it is preferable to include an empty variable rather than to omit the variable from the data file.

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