Ghana - Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey 2011

Version 1.1 Edited

2012-07-09

MICS 2011 had a module for Anaemia and Malaria Testing for Children Under Five. Children were tested for anaemia and malaria after seeking the consent of the parents. The malaria esting was done using the malaria rapid test. Those who tested positive for malaria were given malaria treatment while those whose results showed that they had severe anaemia or severe malaria were advised to seek treatment from a health facility.

There wa also a module on National Health Insurance to find out if households members had subscribed to the scheme and if not, why they were not holding a health insurance card to enable them access health facilities when ill.

The Ghana Statistical Service, in collaboration with the National Malaria Control Programme (NMCP) and the Navrongo Health Research Centre of the Ghana Health Service, conducted the fourth round of the Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS 2011), with funding and technical support from UNICEF, USAID, US President’s Malaria Initiative (PMI) and ICF Macro in Calverton, Maryland, USA. The main objective of the survey was to provide up-to-date information for assessing the health situation of the population, particularly women and children in Ghana.

MICS 2011 is a nationally representative household sample survey of 12,150 households in 810 enumeration areas (EAs). The survey is expected to provide estimates of all key health indicators at the national and regional levels, as well as for urban and rural areas. Moreover, four of the 10 regions that are of particular importance for UNICEF’s programmes will be disproportionally oversampled so as to provide some data at the district level. The four oversampled regions are Central, Northern, Upper East, and Upper West.

MICS 2011 uses four main questionnaires: a Household Questionnaire, a Woman’s Questionnaire for women age 15-49, a Man’s Questionnaire for men age 15-59, and a Child’s Questionnaire for children under five year (with questions posed to the child’s primary caretaker). Major topics covered in these questionnaires include household characteristics, characteristics of respondents, child mortality, child nutritional status, breastfeeding, Vitamin A supplementation, birth registration, birth weight, immunization, salt iodization, oral rehydration treatment, care seeking and antibiotic treatment of pneumonia, , the proportion of households with insecticide treated nets (ITNs), the proportion of the population that sleep under ITNs, solid fuel use, water and sanitation, contraception, antenatal care, delivery and postnatal care, child ,school attendance, literacy, child discipline, female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C), domestic violence (DV), sexual behaviour, HIV/AIDS and the prevalence of malaria parasites and anaemia among children aged 6-59 months. Consequently, blood samples of all children age 6-59 months will be collected for the malaria and anaemia tests. Although malaria indicators (e.g., bednet ownership and use, coverage of intermittent preventive treatment and treatment of childhood fever) will be collected in all households, the malaria and anaemia testing components will be implemented in all households in six regions, but confined to every second household in the four over-sampled regions.

It is hoped that the findings from MICS 2011 would provide up-to-date information on progress made towards targets set by the Ghana Poverty Reduction Strategy (GPRS II), the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and other national and international programmes aimed at promoting the welfare of women and children. The results are also expected to help policy planners improve on access and quality of health-related services in the country.

The MICS 2011 data collection was carried out over a period of three months (September 15 -December 14, 2011) by 20 field teams spread across the country. In order to help achieve the objectives of the survey, enumeration areas (EAs) were selected in some towns and communities within the various districts. In each of these EAs, 15 households were visited and interviewed by a field team comprising of a Supervisor (team leader), 1 Field Editor, 3 Interviewers, 1 Biomarker Technician, and a driver.

Sample survey data [ssd]

Households and Individuals