Description

Like EXPOSURE1, EXPOSURE2 (V625) is a constructed variable that draws upon responses to several questions to distinguish between pregnant women, postpartum amenorrheic women, menopausal or infecund women, and fecund women. EXPOSURE2 uses a more liberal definition of infecundity than EXPOSURE1, however.

When children are chosen as the unit of analysis, the woman respondent indicates the mother of the child.

The DHS Recode Manuals explain the differences between these two variables as follows:

Model A countries and Model B countries are defined according to whether the country based its questionnaire on the Model A or Model B standard DHS questionnaire for DHS phases one through four. In general, the Model A questionnaire was designed for use in countries with high contraceptive prevalence. Nonetheless, countries with relatively low contraceptive prevalence sometimes modeled their own questionnaire on the Model A standard questionnaire. This was the case, for example, for the Kenyan samples for 1998 and 2003 and the Malawi samples for 2000 and 2004.

Comparability

Apart from changes in the universe, EXPOSURE2 (V625) has limited comparability issues. For some samples, postpartum amenorrhea was determined from the most recent birth in the previous 3 years, while for the majority of samples it was determined for the 5 years preceding the survey. See EXPOSURE1 for a list of these exceptions.

Comparability - Standard DHS

EXPOSURE2 (V625) is constructed from questions in the standard DHS questionnaire for Phase 2 forward. Starting in Phase 2, countries had the option to define postpartum amenorrhea based on the most recent birth in the preceding three years, as opposed to five years.

Universe