CLUSTER OPTIMAL SAMPLE SIZE FOR DEMOGRAPHIC AND HEALTH SURVEYS
Alfredo Aliaga, Ruilin Ren · 2006
For practical purposes and simplicity, the sample design used in the Demographic and Health surveys is a two-stages clustered sample. In general, the sampling frame is a complete list of enumeration areas (EAs) created in a recent population census (around 100 households per EA). In a second stage, a prefixed number of households is selected from each EA. All household members (all women ages15-49 in particular) are selected for interviewing. This presentation looks at nearly optimum sample sizes and compares them with different situations. The results show that for most of the Demographic and Health surveys conducted, the sample size per cluster met the optimum size with a tolerable precision loss.