On 17th January 2023, The Kenya National Bureau of Statistics, KNBS, and its partners launched the 2022 Kenya Demographic Health Survey, KDHS in a fully packed, exciting, colourful event at the Kenya International Conference Center (KICC), in Nairobi. The event attracted a massive audience from diverse demographic fields. It was correct to deduce just how significant the report was from the event and what followed up in the subsequent days. In this article, I explain some background on KDHS and its purpose.

What is KDHS?

KDHS is a survey conducted by the national government and its partners through KNBS. The program is part of a collective; Demographic Health Survey (DHS) which seeks to provide insights into the health sector in member countries. The program has collected, analyzed, and disseminated accurate and representative data on population, health, HIV, and nutrition through more than 400 surveys in over 90 countries. DHS programs are monitoring and evaluation tools in that from the reports; we can assess the efficacy of policies through the set indicators. We can note which program is doing well and which is not.

In Kenya, the survey is organized by KNBS every five years with the objective of providing up-to-date estimates of demographic, health, and nutrition indicators to guide the planning, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation of population and health-related programs at the national and county levels. The survey was first carried out in 1989 with occasional changes to the time sequence such as the delay on the 2022 survey that was scheduled for 2019. Data before 2003 did not include some regions in the North Eastern and several northern districts in the Eastern and Rift Valley regions. However, the data from 2003 and later are nationally representative.

Why is it conducted?

It has already been established that KDHS provides continuous up-to-date estimates of demographic health indicators. These updates are key to evaluating and informing policies within the health sector. Today, data-driven decision-making has been shown to have tremendous power to save money. Using data, the government can pinpoint the problem and spend resources only where it is needed or can have an impact. (Bester and Niyigena, 2022).

Another reason why KDHS is conducted is due to some weaknesses in the current health system, not all programs are digitized and provide real-time data. additionally, poor reporting from facilities and failure to fully implement data monitoring activities have contributed to the poor uptake of specific programs. This was addressed by (Okello, et al 2018) where their study indicated the current demands for action have incorporated calls to strengthen IPTp monitoring and evaluation systems, including the use of routine data, to measure coverage, track implementation, and identify roadblocks to improving uptake.

Although a lot of efforts have been made in the health sector more so in HIV care and treatment programs, TB programs, Covid-19, and Malaria which provide real-time data through platforms such as; the Kenya Health Information System, Kenya EMR, the District Health Information Software (DHIS2), and Covid-19 Pata Chanjo portals and dashboards; there are still gaps in reporting. KDHS, therefore, bridges this gap by providing data occasionally that is sufficient to evaluate the efficacy of programs within the health sector.

Speaking to Citizen TV during an interview after the launch of KDHS, KNBS Director General Dr. McDonald Obudho, explained that the only time Kenya will stop doing KDHS is when Kenya reaches the status of a developed country.

What are some of the indicators in the KDHS?

The 2022 KDHS indicators report focused on 17 main areas. They include; Health Insurance, TB and HIV, Gender and Sexual Violence, Malaria, Maternal Care, Vaccination coverage, Fertility, and teenage pregnancies. Each contains reports on key indicators for monitoring and evaluating programs within each category. The report also compares the finding to those of the previous KDHS thereby offering a visual representation of the trends within the indicator.

Who uses the data obtained from KDHS?

The following stakeholders use the data from the surveys in different capacities;

1. The Kenyan Government. Both levels of government, the Ministry of Health and the Treasury and the Department of Planning utilize the data from the survey to develop and evaluate policies that are targeted such as staffing and resource mobilization and distribution to regions as prescribed by the need thereby having maximum returns.
2. Academia fraternity and researchers use the data to form baselines for their research. In a previous article on sampling, I described how previous research and surveys can be used to compute sample sizes for current research. Read more from here.
3. Non-Profit organizations. NGOs supplement efforts made by the government in diverse sectors. The data from these surveys inform these organizations to develop targeted approaches to support government programs. Although these organizations are mainly non-profit, approaches such as this do ensure that they also get maximum return on their investments.
4. Citizens. The citizens may use the data to hold their government accountable especially with the health sector being devolved in Kenya. The data from the survey may serve as a benchmark to assess how well their government is doing especially in sectors where they made key promises to the citizens.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the KDHS program offers great insights into our health sector’s progress as a country. The survey allows the government and partners to evaluate and set policies that improve the health sector. I encourage everyone to go through the report and not to get carried away by the statistical findings that may be humorous but, instead appreciate the effort being made by the government and its partners in the health community. You can read the key indicators report here.

References

1. Okello. G, Gerrets. R, Zakayo. S, Molyneux. S, (2018). “Every day they keep adding new tools but they don’t take any away”: Producing indicators for intermittent preventive treatment for malaria in pregnancy (IPTp) from routine data in Kenya: published on PLOS ONE. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0189699
2. Bester. H, Niyigenas. F, (2022). What is data-driven decision making and what does it mean for Rwanda?: published on Cenfri. https://cenfri.org/articles/what-is-data-driven-decision-making-and-what-does-it-mean-for-rwanda/#:~:text=One%20of%20the%20great%20benefits,or%20can%20have%20an%20impact

3. Citizen TV Kenya. (2022, January 17) Demographic Health Survey

   Most urban families opt for fewer children (Part 1). [YouTube Video].https://youtu.be/_79VFHqUQP0

4. Demographic Health Surveys Program. https://dhsprogram.com/
5. Kenya National Bureau of Statistics. https://www.knbs.or.ke/
6. 2022 Kenya Demographic Health Survey Indicators Report. https://dhsprogram.com/pubs/pdf/PR143/PR143.pdf