Journal Article

When health data go dark: the importance of the DHS Program and imagining its future

Grovogui, Fassou Mathias, Pembe, Andrea B., Afolabi, Bosede B., Athanase, Rukundo, Semaan, Aline, Kitara, David Lagoro, Ouédraogo, Mariame Oumar, Asefa, Anteneh, Macharia, Peter M., Christou, Aliki, Okiro, Emelda A., Kikula, Amani, Chikwari, Chido Dziva, Olal, Emmanuel, Baguiya, Adama, Straneo, Manuela, Mosuse, Marie Alice, Fouogue, Jovanny Tsuala, Amodu, Abioye, Mutua, Martin Kavao, Molenaar, Jil, Musau Nkola, Angèle, Ba, Oumar Aly, Hensen, Bernadette, Owolabi, Onikepe, Khaki, Jessie Jane, Beňová, Lenka, Phiri, Mwelwa, Wong, Kerry L. M., Karki, Sulata

2025

Overview

Background The suspension and/or termination of many programmes funded through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) by the new US administration has severe short- and long-term negative impacts on the health of people worldwide. We draw attention to the termination of the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) Program, which includes nationally representative surveys of households, DHS, Malaria Indicator Surveys [MIS]) and health facilities (Service Provision Assessments [SPA]) in over 90 low- and middle-income countries. USAID co-funding and provision of technical support for these surveys has been shut down. Main body The impact of these disruptions will reverberate across local, regional, national, and global levels and severely impact the ability to understand the levels and changes in population health outcomes and behaviours. We highlight three key impacts on (1) ongoing data collection and data processing activities; (2) future data collection and consequent lack of population-level health indicators; and (3) access to existing data and lack of support for its use. Conclusions We call for immediate action on multiple fronts. In the short term, universal access to existing data and survey materials should be restored, and surveys which were planned or in progress should be completed. In the long term, this crisis should serve as a tipping point for transforming these vital surveys. We call on national governments, regional organisations, and international partners to develop sustainable alternatives that preserve the principles (standardised questionnaires, backward compatibility, open access data with rigorous documentation) which made the DHS Program an invaluable global health resource.

• Publisher: BioMed Central,BioMed Central Ltd,Springer Nature B.V,BMC
• Subject: Biomedicine / Data collection / Data entry / Data processing / Datasets / Debate / Decision making / Demographic and Health Survey / Demographic surveys / Demography / Developing Countries / DHS Program / Economic aspects / Federal aid to medical research / Funding / Geospatial data / Global Health / Health aspects / Health care facilities / Health surveys / Health Surveys - trends / Households / Human papillomavirus / Humans / Low- and middle-income countries / Malaria / Malaria - epidemiology / Medicine / Medicine & Public Health / Methods / Political aspects / Polls & surveys / Population / Population surveys / Public health / Regional development / Service Provision Assessment / Social aspects / Surveys / United States / USAID / Vaccines / Vector-borne diseases / World health