Feasibility of Innovative Tools and Methods to Improve Household Surveys in Complex Urban Settings: Multiple Methods Analysis of the Surveys for Urban Equity (SUE) Study in Kathmandu, Dhaka and Hanoi

Version 1 : Received: 25 October 2019 / Approved: 28 October 2019 / Online: 28 October 2019 (11:48:02 CET)
Version 2 : Received: 9 April 2020 / Approved: 10 April 2020 / Online: 10 April 2020 (07:39:01 CEST)
Version 3 : Received: 21 August 2020 / Approved: 24 August 2020 / Online: 24 August 2020 (09:51:16 CEST)

A peer-reviewed article of this Preprint also exists.

Thomson, D.R.; Bhattarai, R.; Khanal, S.; Manandhar, S.; Dhungel, R.; Gajurel, S.; Hicks, J.P.; Duc, D.M.; Ferdoush, J.; Ferdous, T.; et al. Addressing Unintentional Exclusion of Vulnerable and Mobile Households in Traditional Surveys in Kathmandu, Dhaka, and Hanoi: A Mixed-Methods Feasibility Study. Journal of Urban Health 2020, 98, 111–129, doi:10.1007/s11524-020-00485-z. Thomson, D.R.; Bhattarai, R.; Khanal, S.; Manandhar, S.; Dhungel, R.; Gajurel, S.; Hicks, J.P.; Duc, D.M.; Ferdoush, J.; Ferdous, T.; et al. Addressing Unintentional Exclusion of Vulnerable and Mobile Households in Traditional Surveys in Kathmandu, Dhaka, and Hanoi: A Mixed-Methods Feasibility Study. Journal of Urban Health 2020, 98, 111–129, doi:10.1007/s11524-020-00485-z.

Abstract

Background: The methods used in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) household surveys have not changed in four decades; however, LMIC societies have changed substantially. This mismatch may result in unintentional exclusion of vulnerable and mobile urban populations. We compare three survey method innovations with standard survey methods in Kathmandu, Dhaka, and Hanoi, and summarize feasibility of our innovative methods in terms of time, cost, skill requirements, and experiences. Methods: We used descriptive statistics and regression techniques to compare respondent characteristics in samples drawn with innovative versus standard survey designs and household definitions, adjusting for sample probability weights and clustering. Feasibility of innovative methods was evaluated using a thematic framework analysis of focus group discussions with survey field staff, and via survey planner budgets. Results: We found that a common household definition excluded single adult (46.9%) and migrant headed households (6.7%), as well as non-married (8.5%), unemployed (10.5%), disabled (9.3%), and studying (14.3%) adults. Further, standard two-stage sampling resulted in fewer single adult and non-family households than an innovative one-stage design; however, two-stage sampling resulted in more tent and shack dwellers. Our survey innovations provided good value for money and field staff experiences were neutral or positive. Staff recommended streamlining field tools and pairing technical and survey content experts during fieldwork. Conclusions: This evidence of unintentional exclusion of vulnerable and mobile urban populations in LMIC household surveys is deeply concerning, and underscores the need to modernize survey methods and practices.

Keywords

Nepal; Vietnam; Bangladesh; gridded population sampling; GridSample; OpenStreetMap; GeoODK; cross-sectional design; urban; household survey

Subject

Business, Economics and Management, Econometrics and Statistics

Copyright: This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Download PDF

Comments (1)

Comment 1

Received: 10 April 2020
Commenter: Dana Thomson
Commenter's Conflict of Interests: Author

Comment: Revisions in response to reviewers

+ Respond to this comment

Not displayed online.

Importance: How significant is the paper to the field?

Outstanding/highlight paper

Significant contribution

Incremental contribution

No contribution

I am not qualified to judge

Soundness of evidence/arguments presented:

Conclusions well supported

Most conclusions supported (minor revision needed)

Incomplete evidence (major revision needed)

Hypothesis, unsupported conclusions, or proof-of-principle

I am not qualified to judge

Please leave your comment to this article below.

Mathematical equations can be typed in either LaTeX formats \\[ ... \\] or $$ ... $$, or MathML format <math> ... </math>. Try the LaTeX or MathML example.

Type equation:

Preview:

Copy equation into message below

Close menu

Please click a symbol to insert it into the message box below:

Please enter the link here:

Please enter a valid URL

Optionally, you can enter text that should appear as linked text:

Copy link into message below

Close menu

Please enter or paste the URL to the image here (please only use links to jpg/jpeg, png and gif images):

Please enter a valid URL

Copy image into message below

Close menu

Type author name or keywords to filter the list of references in this group (you can add a new citation under Bibliography):

No existing citations in Discussion Group

Wikify editor is a simple editor for wiki-style mark-up. It was written by MDPI for Sciforum in 2014. The rendering of the mark-up is based on Wiky.php with some tweaks. Rendering of mathematical equations is done with MathJax. Please send us a message for support or for reporting bugs.

Close menu

Please declare any conflicts of interest you may have with this paper, financial or otherwise.

I do not have a conflict of interest

I would like to declare a conflict of interest

Display my name on the website Send my name and email address to the authors

Captcha

Renew

I accept the following conditions:

Comments must follow the standards of professional discourse and should focus on the scientific content of the article. Insulting or offensive language, personal attacks and off-topic remarks will not be permitted. Comments must be written in English. Preprints reserves the right to remove comments without notice. Readers who post comments are obliged to declare any competing interests, financial or otherwise.

We encourage comments and feedback from a broad range of readers. See criteria for comments and our Diversity statement.

Leave a public comment
Send a private comment to the author(s)

* All users must log in before leaving a comment

what’s this?

Add a record of this review to Publons to track and showcase your reviewing expertise across the world’s journals.

Downloads 0

Comments 1

Get PDF Cite Share 0

Bookmark BibSonomy Mendeley Reddit Delicious

Alerts

Notify me about updates to this article or when a peer-reviewed version is published.

Preprints.org is a free preprint server subsidized by MDPI in Basel, Switzerland.

MDPI Initiatives

SciProfiles
Sciforum
Encyclopedia
MDPI Books
Scilit
Proceedings
JAMS

Important links

How it Works
Advisory Board
FAQ
Friendly Journals
Instructions for Authors
About
Statistics

Choose the area that interest you and we will send you notifications of new preprints at your preferred frequency.

Disclaimer

We use cookies on our website to ensure you get the best experience.
Read more about our cookies here.

RSS feed for

Preprints: The Multidisciplinary Preprint Platform

Paste the URL in your RSS reader:

https://www.preprints.org/rss

If you want to subscribe our website in subject-wide, you could find the URL by choosing in the following:

https://www.preprints.org/rss

Please note that by using ScienceDirect RSS feeds, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.