Interviewer instructions
On what DAY and in what MONTH and YEAR was (NAME) born?” the day, month and year are recorded in the spaces provided. If any of the information is not known, the fieldworkers should ASK if there is any written document (birth certificate, ID card, vaccination card, Church documents with dates of birth, etc) from where the required information for this column can be obtained. Code '99' is used for DAY or MONTH if either of these is unknown. The year must be known, if not, the exact age is asked and converted into the year of birth. Estimation of a respondent or household member's age is ONLY done under extreme circumstances, and the basis for the estimation should be indicated. The estimation should be done with the help of the respondent (not only based on how people look) based on how old they might have been when some historic national events took place.
A list of key historical events and their dates of occurrence is provided below. This helps the fieldworker to prompt further in instances where they have to estimate an individual's date of birth.
This column is very important because all rates that will be produced from the NUHDSS data will use the date of birth of the individuals in the database. Slight errors in this column will, therefore, have a big negative impact on the validity and accuracy of the NUHDSS.
