The result of the approach presented in this repository has been to enable a much more systematic approach to processing DHS survey datasets in their entirety, so that we can ask new questions and produce new types of summary datasets from them.
This has directly enabled and led to numerous published high-impact papers, in the following main subject areas:
- Summarising treatment-seeking behaviour for children with fever
- Summarising use of antimalarials, classified by drug type
- Creating all the above datasets in forms that can be interlinked in order to model the effects of one on another
- Extracting measures regarding the prevalence of improved housing
- Extracting measures relating to healthcare outcomes in children (mortality, vaccinations, etc) in a way that can be linked to the housing datasets
- Re-creation of several DHS national/regional indicator variables at a cluster (point) scale - on behalf of DHS themselves - enabling the production of continuous spatial surfaces for these (published here)
- Extracting malaria prevalence rate ("PR") data in a consistent format across all surveys for which it is collected
- Extracting data on availability and usage of insecticide-treated bednets (ITNs) across all surveys for which it is collected
A selection of papers follows that have been directly enabled or significantly supported by the code and methods developed in this repository:
Indirect effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on malaria intervention coverage, morbidity, and mortality in Africa: a geospatial modelling analysis; Weiss et al., Lancet Infectious Diseases, 2021
Housing and child health in sub-Saharan Africa: A cross-sectional analysis; Tusting et al., PLoS Medicine, 2020
Environmental temperature and growth faltering in African children: a cross-sectional study; Tusting et al., Lancet Planetary Health, 2020
Indoor residual spraying for malaria control in sub-Saharan Africa 1997 to 2017: an adjusted retrospective analysis; Tangena et al., Malaria Journal, 2020
Global maps of travel time to healthcare facilities; Weiss et al., Nature Medicine, 2020 (extended analysis)
Mapping changes in housing in sub-Saharan Africa from 2000 to 2015; Tusting et al., Nature, 2019
Mapping the global endemicity and clinical burden of Plasmodium vivax, 2000–17: a spatial and temporal modelling study; Battle et al., The Lancet, 2019
Mapping the global prevalence, incidence, and mortality of Plasmodium falciparum, 2000–17: a spatial and temporal modelling study; Weiss et al., The Lancet, 2019
The contribution of non-malarial febrile illness co-infections to Plasmodium falciparum case counts in health facilities in sub-Saharan Africa; Dalrymple et al., Malaria Journal, 2019
Spatio-temporal mapping of Madagascar's Malaria Indicator Survey results to assess Plasmodium falciparum endemicity trends between 2011 and 2016; Kang et al., BMC Medicine, 2018
Population coverage of artemisinin-based combination treatment in children younger than 5 years with fever and Plasmodium falciparum infection in Africa, 2003–2015: a modelling study using data from national surveys; Bennett et al., Lancet Planetary Health, 2017
Housing Improvements and Malaria Risk in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Multi-Country Analysis of Survey Data; Tusting et al., PLoS Medicine, 2017
Mapping Plasmodium falciparum Mortality in Africa between 1990 and 2015; Gething et al., New England Journal of Medicine, 2016
Treatment-seeking rates in malaria endemic countries; Battle et al., Malaria Journal, 2016