Narrative Description of Project: The objectives of this survey, like the previous BDHSs, is to provide information to address the monitoring and evaluation needs of  the Fourth Health, Population and Nutrition Sector Program (HPNSP)and to provide managers and policy makers involved in this program with the information that they need to effectively plan and execute future interventions. This will provide high-quality, up-to-date data on population, health, and nutrition for use by the government, NGOs, international organizations, universities, mass media, and other organizations and researchers for policymaking, program planning, monitoring and evaluation, and general scientific knowledge. In addition to that BDHS-2017 will provide information on Bangladesh to include in the body of international data archived and distributed to data users by the DHS program.

The 2017 BDHS uses cross-sectional design based on a nationally representative probability sample of households covering all Divisions in Bangladesh. 

Prior to face-to-face household-level and individual-level interviews, a complete household listing and mapping operation is conducted to obtain the name of the head of the household and the address or location of each residential household within the boundaries of the selected cluster. The latitude and longitude of the cluster are taken at the central point of the cluster and recorded in a GPS unit. From the household listing of each cluster, a systematic random sample of households are drawn. The cluster number, household number, and name of the head of the selected household are given to field teams to enable interviewers to properly identify the households selected for interview.

In all households in the sample, anthropometric measures (height and weight) are obtained for ever-married women of reproductive age and for children age 6-71 months. In addition to this, blood pressure and glucose is measured for women and men age 18 and older by trained and qualified Health Technicians.

Responsibilities for Mitra and Associates:

• participate in the consultations of the SAC and TWG on the survey and questionnaire design; 

• oversee the translation of the questionnaires and manuals into Bangla;

• participate in the biomarker protocol development, and review processes as needed;

• liaise with the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) to obtain the necessary sampling information;

• recruit, train, and monitor the listing teams who will list the households in the selected sample clusters;

• pre-testing and finalization of questionnaires;

• recruit, train, and supervise the data collection teams for the household and health facility surveys;

• In all households in the sample, anthropometric measures (height and weight) are obtained for ever-married women of reproductive age and for children age 6-71 months. In addition to this, blood pressure and glucose is measured for women and men age 18 and older by trained and qualified Health Technicians.

• enter survey data (double entry) into computers and edit the dataset;

• submission of clean data sets; and

• assist with drafting the survey reports and disseminating the survey data.

Duration of the project: July 03, 2017-June 01, 2018.

Contact reference: The survey was awarded by ICF Macro, Inc. and funded by U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). Contact person is Ms. Sri Poedjastoeti, Senior Technical Specialist, ICF International, 530 Gaither Road, Suite 500 Rockville, Maryland 20850, USA., Email: Sri.Poedjastoeti@icf.com.