Definition
NATCAT3YMAIN reports the main type of event that (negatively) affected life for the household, in the past 3 years. A household might have been affected by more than one such event--for example, serious illness of a household member followed by the person's death, or flooding that led to loss of livestock. The respondent stated the "main" event in response to an open-ended question.
The related variable NATCAT3Y is a yes/no variable indicating whether the household was affected by a negative event in the past 3 years.
The information in NATCAT3YMAIN is taken from the household record and applies to regular household residents, not temporary visitors. Researchers may wish to exclude visitors using the RESIDENT variable (with visitors coded "2") when women, children, or births are the unit of analysis, and using the HHRESIDENT variable when household members are the unit of analysis.