Description

Like EXPOSURE1 and EXPOSURE2, EXPOSURE3 (V625A) 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. EXPOSURE3, however, utilizes a revised definition of unmet need for family planning. Broadly, these revisions are as follows:

• Exclude inconsistently collected data.

• Do not assume an unmet need status for women missing key data.

• Simplify classification of unmet need for spacing versus unmet need for limiting.

• Shorten the duration for which women are considered to be postpartum amenorrheic.

• Standardize the calculation of infecundity.

• Explicitly handle inconsistencies.

For more details on these changes, refer to "Revising Unmet Need for Family Planning," which can be found here.

Comparability

Apart from changes in the universe, EXPOSURE3 (V625A) 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

EXPOSURE3 (V625A) is constructed from questions in the standard DHS questionnaire for Phase 6 forward. Starting in Phase 2, countries had the option of defining postpartum amenorrhea based on the most recent birth in the preceding three years, as opposed to five years.

Universe