Health and Nutrition

The 2019/20 Gambia Demographic and Health Survey

• Author: Sanna Manjang, Director of Coordination, Statistical Methods, Quality Assurance & Dissemination
• Published: July 25, 2019 8:26 am

The Government of The Gambia, through the Gambia Bureau of Statistics (GBoS), in collaboration with the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare, will be conducting the 2019/20 Gambia Demographic and Health Survey (GDHS 2019/20), from October 2019 to February 2020. The Gambia Demographic and Health Survey (GDHS 2019/20) is the second DHS survey to be conducted in The Gambia in collaboration with the worldwide Demographic and Health Survey Program.

The 2019/20 Gambia Demographic and Health Survey is a national sample survey designed to provide information on population, family planning, maternal and child health, child survival, HIV/AIDS and sexually transmitted infections (STIs), reproductive health, and nutrition in The Gambia. The DHS will involve interviewing a randomly selected group of respondents who are between 15 and 49 years of age. These respondents will be asked questions about their background, the children they have given birth to, their knowledge and use of family planning methods, the health of their children, their awareness of HIV/AIDS and sexually transmissible infections, and other information that will be helpful to policy makers and administrators in health and family planning fields.

Prior to the data collection exercise, a listing operation is conducted and consists of visiting each of the randomly selected clusters, recording on listing forms a description of every structure together with the names of the heads of the households found in the structure, and drawing a location map of the cluster as well as a detailed sketch map of all structures found in the cluster. This operation ensures that all households located in the selected clusters are listed. These materials will guide the interviewers to find the pre-selected households for interviewing eligible members. The listing operation which will be followed by the detail data collection began on July 18, 2019 and is expected to last for 63 days.

 The 2019/20 Gambia DHS will be conducted across the country, in the eight Local Government Areas: Banjul, Kanifing, Brikama, Mansakonko, Kerewan, Kuntaur, Janjanbureh, and Basse. A sample of 25 households will be selected in 281 enumeration areas, adding up to a total of 7025 households. The survey will last for a period of hundred and twenty (120) days.

The 2019/20 Gambia DHS is led by the Gambia Bureau of Statistics (GBoS), and jointly funded by the Government of The Gambia, United States Agency for International Development (USAID), United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), United Nation’s Children Fund (UNICEF), Network for Gender Based Violence (NGBV) and the National Nutrition Agency (NaNA).

Government solicits the cooperation and participation of all those concerned as data from this survey will provide useful information for policy makers and administrators in health and family planning fields.