High-Frequency Phone Survey on COVID-19 - World Bank LSMS Harmonized Dataset (Malawi)

Abstract

To facilitate the use of data collected through the high-frequency phone surveys on COVID-19, the Living Standards Measurement Study (LSMS) team has created the harmonized datafiles using two household surveys: 1) the country’ latest face-to-face survey which has become the sample frame for the phone survey, and 2) the country’s high-frequency phone survey on COVID-19.

The LSMS team has extracted and harmonized variables from these surveys, based on the harmonized definitions and ensuring the same variable names. These variables include demography as well as housing, household consumption expenditure, food security, and agriculture. Inevitably, many of the original variables are collected using questions that are asked differently. The harmonized datafiles include the best available variables with harmonized definitions.

Two harmonized datafiles are prepared for each survey. The two datafiles are:
1. HH: This datafile contains household-level variables. The information include basic household characterizes, housing, water and sanitation, asset ownership, consumption expenditure, consumption quintile, food security, livestock ownership. It also contains information on agricultural activities such as crop cultivation, use of organic and inorganic fertilizer, hired labor, use of tractor and crop sales.
2. IND: This datafile contains individual-level variables. It includes basic characteristics of individuals such as age, sex, marital status, disability status, literacy, education and work.