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MICS

Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey 2000

Albania, 2000
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Reference ID
ALB_2000_MICS_v01_M
Producer(s)
National Institute of Statistics
Collection(s)
UNICEF Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys (MICS)
Metadata
DDI/XML JSON
Created on
Mar 09, 2011
Last modified
Sep 26, 2013
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  • Study Description
  • Data Description
  • Documentation
  • Get Microdata
  • Related citations
  • Identification
  • Coverage
  • Producers and sponsors
  • Sampling
  • Data Collection
  • Questionnaires
  • Data Processing
  • Access policy
  • Metadata production

Identification

Survey ID Number
ALB_2000_MICS_v01_M
Title
Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey 2000
Country/Economy
Name Country code
Albania ALB
Study type
Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey - Round 2 [hh/mics-2]
Abstract
The 2000 Albania Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS) is a nationally representative survey of households, women, and children. The main objectives of the survey are to provide for the first time information for assessing the situation of children and women in Albania at the end of the decade and to furnish data needed for monitoring progress toward goals established at the World Summit for Children and as a basis for future action.

Infant and Under Five Mortality
· Infant mortality rate and under five estimates were obtained using United Nations QFIVE program. The information for calculating these ratios were provided by MICS survey carried out in June – July 2000. The infant mortality rate is 28 per 1000 and under five is 33 per 1000.

Education
· Overall ninety percent of children of primary school age in Albania are attending primary school. In urban areas, 91 percent of children attend school while in rural areas 90 percent · 82 percent of children who enter the first grade of primary school reach grade five.
· The vast majority (88 percent) of the population over age 15 years is literate. The percentage of literacy declines from 93 percent among those aged 15-34 to 65 percent among the population aged 65 and older.

Water and Sanitation
· More than 45 percent of the population uses drinking water piped into their dwellings, 20 percent uses water piped into a yard or plot and 16,4 percent uses water from a public tap. However , it should be mentioned that these data do not estimate the real access of population to drinking water due to poor infrastructure and the lack of water.

Child Malnutrition
· Four percent of children under age five in Albania are underweight or too thin for their age. 17 percent of children are stunted and 4 percent are wasted.
· Children whose mothers have secondary or higher education are least likely to be underweight and stunted compared to children of mothers with less education.

Breastfeeding
· Approximately 9 percent of children aged under four months are exclusively breastfed, a level considerably lower than recommended. At age 6-9 months, 24 percent of children are receiving breast milk and solid or semi-solid foods. By age 20-23 months, only 6 percent continue to breastfeed.

Salt Iodization
· Seventy six percent of households in Albania have adequately iodized salt. The percentage of households with adequately iodized salt ranges from 70.9 percent in the urban areas to 47.8 percent in the rural areas.

Vitamin A Supplementation
· Within six months prior to the MICS, 7.4 percent of children aged 6-59 months had received a high dose of Vitamin A supplement. Approximately 5 percent did not receive a supplement in the last 6 months but did receive one prior to that time.
· The mother’s level of education effects the likelihood of Vitamin A supplementation. The percentage receiving a supplement in the last six months increases from 6.5 percent among children whose mothers have primary education to 11 percent among children of mothers with higher education.
· Only about 3 percent of mothers who had given birth in the year preceding MICS received a Vitamin A supplement within eight weeks of giving birth

Low Birth weight
· Approximately 3 percent of infants are estimated to weigh less than 2500 grams at birth. The prevalence of low birth weight does not vary much between urban and rural areas or by the mother’s education.

Immunization Coverage
· Information on immunization coverage provided by MICS survey is based on vaccination cards. However, this information might not be periodically updated, due to the fact that many immunization campaigns are carried out during emergencies. Eighty percent of children aged 12 – 23 months received a BCG vaccination by the age of 12 months and the first dose of DPT was given to 71 percent. The percentage declines for subsequent doses of DPT to 61 percent for the second dose, and 52 percent for the third dose. Similarly, 57.3 percent of children received Polio 1 by age 12 months. This declines to 28.7 percent by the third dose. The coverage for measles vaccine by 12 months is at 61 percent. Male and female children are vaccinated at roughly the same rate. Vaccination coverage is highest among children whose mothers have secondary or higher education.

Diarrhea
· Approximately 94 percent of children with diarrhea received one or more of the recommended home treatments (i.e., were treated with ORS or RHF).
· Only 48.2 percent of children with diarrhea received increased fluids and continued eating as recommended.

Acute Respiratory Infection
· Acute lower respiratory infections, particularly pneumonia. is one of the leading causes of child mortality in Albania. 83 percent of children with ARI were taken to an appropriate health provider.

IMCI Initiative
· Among children under five who were reported to have had diarrhea or some other illness in the two weeks preceding the MICS, 47 percent received increased fluids and continued eating as recommended under the IMCI program.
· In rural areas, mothers especially those without education recognized at least two of the signs that a child should be taken immediately to a health facility.

Malaria
According to official data there are no malaria cases reported in Albania.

HIV/AIDS
· 25 percent of women aged 15-49 know all three of the main ways to prevent HIV transmission, 55 percent believe that having only one uninfected sex partner can prevent HIV transmission, 42 percent believe that using a condom every time, and abstaining from sex can prevent HIV transmission. Less than two percent of women correctly stated that AIDS cannot be transmitted by supernatural means whereas 12,6 percent stated that AIDS cannot be spread by mosquito bites. More than 40 percent of women correctly believe that a healthy looking person can be infected.
· Twenty three percent of women of reproductive age in Albania know where to get tested for AIDS. According to MICS results, only 0,7 percent of women have been tested for AIDS.

Contraception
· Current use of contraception was reported by 58 percent of married or in union women. The most popular method is withdrawal which is used by 33 percent of married women.

Prenatal Care
· Thirty percent of women with recent births in Albania are protected against neonatal tetanus. The vast majority of these women received two doses of tetanus toxoid within the last three years.
· Virtually all women in Albania receive some type of prenatal care and 95 percent receive antenatal care from skilled personnel (doctor, nurse, midwife).

Assistance at Delivery
· In the year prior to MICS survey, one in ten deliveries were assisted by a midwife. Doctors assisted the delivery of 57 percent of cases and nurses 37 percent. Less than one percent of deliveries did not have any assistance in the year prior to MICS survey.

Birth Registration
· The births of 99 percent of children under five years in Albania have been registered. There are no significant variations in birth registration across sex, age, or education categories.

Orphaned children and Living Arrangements of Children
· In Albania, 96,5 percent of children aged 0 – 14 are living with both parents. A very small percentage of children aged 0 – 14 years old have one or both parents dead, 0,2 percent are not living with a biological parent.

Child Labor
· In Albania, the MICS survey estimates that less than one percent of children aged 5 – 14 years old engage in paid work. About 3 percent participate in unpaid work for someone other than a household member. Variations across urban and rural areas are greatest in the percentage of children who engage in less than four hours of domestic work a day. This percentage ranges from 49 percent in urban areas and 60 percent in rural areas.
Kind of Data
Sample survey data [ssd]
Unit of Analysis
Households, women, and children.

Coverage

Geographic Coverage
The 2000 Albania Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS) is a nationally representative survey.

Producers and sponsors

Primary investigators
Name
National Institute of Statistics
Producers
Name Role
United Nations Children Fund Technical support
Funding Agency/Sponsor
Name Abbreviation
United Nations Children Fund UNICEF
Other Identifications/Acknowledgments
Name
Committee on Women and Family
Institute of Public Health
Faculty of Social Sciences

Sampling

Sampling Procedure
The sample for the Albania Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS) was designed to provide estimates various indicators at the national level, for urban and rural areas. The sample was selected in two stages. At the first stage, 376 primary Sampling Units (PSU) were systematically selected from 1665 PSU. At the second stage, households were selected systematically within each PSU. The total sample had 5182 households. Because the sample was stratified by urban and rural areas, it is not self-weighting. For reporting national level results, sample weights are used.
Response Rate
Of the 5182 households selected for the Albania MICS sample, 4970 were found to be occupied (Table 1). Of these, 4821 were successfully interviewed for a household response rate of 97 percent. The response rate was higher in urban areas (98 percent) than in rural areas (95.7 percent). In the interviewed households, 5496 eligible women aged 15-49 were identified. Of these, 5456 were successfully interviewed, yielding a response rate of 99.3 percent. In addition, 1453 children under age five were listed in the household questionnaire. Of these, questionnaires were completed for 1452 children for a response rate of 99.9 percent.
Weighting
SAMPLE SIZE CALCULATION

The current section describes how the sample size can be calculated when the survey situation fits neither that used for Table 4.9 nor for Table 4.10 in Chapter 4. The sample size calculation applies only to persons, since the most important indicators for end-decade assessment are person-based. Household sample size calculations would not only require a different formula, but also very different design effect, or deff values, of 10 or more.
The calculating formula, taking into account the parameters and assumptions discussed in Chapter 4, is given by
n = [4 (r) (1 - r) (f) (1.1)] / [(e2) (p) (nh)], where (1)
(taking the components in order)
n is the required sample size for the KEY (rarest) indicator,
4 is a factor to achieve the 95 percent level of confidence,
r is the predicted or anticipated prevalence (coverage rate) for the key indicator,
which is based upon the smallest target group (in terms of its proportion of the total population),
1.1 is the factor necessary to raise the sample size by 10 percent for nonresponse,
f is the deff,
e is the margin of error to be tolerated,
p is the proportion of the total population that the smallest group comprises, and
nh is the average household size.

A numerical example is provided to illustrate the calculation.

.EXAMPLE (MODERATE-TO-HIGH COVERAGE RATE):
Suppose the target group in your country that comprises the smallest percentage of the total population is one-year-old children (recall that we are purposely excluding the four-month age groups that form the base for the breastfeeding indicators) and this group comprises 3 percent of the population. Further suppose that their DPT coverage is anticipated to be the lowest of all the indicator coverages - 50 percent, for which we want our margin of error to be 5 percentage points. If your average household size is 6 persons and we assume the sample deff is moderate, or 1.75, then the values of your parameters will be as follows:
r = 0.5
p = .03
f = 1.75
e = .05
nh = 6
Substituting, you have
n = {4 x 0.5 x (1-0.5) x 1.75 x 1.1} / {(.05)2 x .03 x 6}
= 4,278.
This is the number of households you would need to survey in order to estimate DPT coverage of about 50 percent with a margin of error of 5 percentage points. Those households would contain about 25,667 persons, of which about 770 would be one-year-old children.

Formula (1) can be rewritten in shortcut version for easy calculation whenever the values of p, f, e, and nh are fixed at .03, 1.75, .05, and 6, respectively, and when the 95 percent level of confidence and nonresponse adjustment (factors of 4 and 1.1, respectively) are not changed. In that case the shortcut version is given by
n = (17,111) r (1- r). (2)
It is recommended to use the formulas (long or shortcut) instead of Table 4.9 in Chapter 4 if your moderate-to-high prevalence rate is not close to 50 percent, which is the value that the table is based upon. You would have to use the long version (formula 1) if you want to change one or more of the p, e, f, or nh values.
You might also want to consider using the long version if your nonresponse is not expected to be as high as 10 percent, in which case you would substitute for the factor of 1.1 accordingly.
It is recommended that you use the formula instead of Table 4.9 if your least coverage indicator is quite high (for example, 75 percent), because the sample size will be considerably less. For an r value of 0.75, for example, n would be 3,208 (short formula).
Another example is provided for the case where your key indicator has low coverage.
.EXAMPLE (LOW COVERAGE RATE):
Suppose your polio coverage is expected to be about 25 percent. In this case you would want your margin of error to be 3 percentage points instead of 5 (so that the confidence interval for the coverage estimate is 22 to 28 percent, as opposed to 20 to 30 percent). The other parameter values are the same as in the first example. Substituting, you would have
n = {4 x 0.25 x (1-0.25) x 1.75 x 1.1} / {(.03)2 x .03 x 6}
= 8,912

You can readily see that with stricter tolerance for the margin of error, necessary for the low coverage indicator, the sample size is much larger. This is why it is important in selecting the key indicator upon which to base your sample size that both the smallest target group be identified, and, within that group, the indicator that has the lowest coverage.
The shortcut version for calculating sample sizes for different low coverage indicators is given by:
n = 47,531 r (1- r), whenever (3)
p, e, f, and nh are fixed at .03, .03, 1.75, and 6, respectively.
The formulas should be used instead of Table 4.10 in Chapter 4 if your low coverage indicator has a value that departs significantly from 25 percent, since the latter is the value that Table 4.10 is based upon.

PROCEDURES FOR SAMPLING WITH PPS - OPTION 2
In this section we give an illustration of how to select the first-stage units using pps. The illustration also shows you how to combine systematic pps sampling with geographic arrangement of the sampling frame to achieve implicit stratification.
For the illustration we take Option 2 from Chapter 4, the standard segment design, and we select a national sample. Suppose (1) the standard segment size under Option 2 is to be 500 persons, or about 100 households; (2) census enumeration areas (EAs) are to be the sample frame; and (3) the number of PSUs to be selected is 300. The steps of the first-stage selection, which follow, should be done as a computer operation, although it is possible to do them manually.
Step 1: Sort the file of EAs by urban and rural.
Step 2: Within the urban category, further sort the file in geographic serpentine order according to the administrative subdivisions of your country (for example, province or state, district, commune, etc.).
Step 3: Repeat Step 2 for the rural category.
Step 4: In one column show the census population count of the EA.
Step 5: In the next column compute the number of standard segments, which is equal to the population count divided by 500, and rounded to the nearest integer. This is the measure of size for the EA.
Step 6: Cumulate the measures of size in the next column.
Step 7: Compute the sampling interval, I, by dividing the total cumulant by 300, to one decimal place. In this illustration suppose the total cumulant is 5,281. Then the sampling interval, I, would be equal to 5,281/300, or 17.6.
Step 8: Select a random start between 0 and 17.6. The way to do this, in practice, is to use a table of random numbers and select a three-digit number between 001 and 176 and insert the decimal afterward. Suppose you select 042; then your random start is 4.2. Then your first sample PSU would be the one for which the cumulant measure of size is the smallest value equal to or greater than 4.2.
Step 9: Add 4.2 to I, or 4.2 + 17.6 = 21.8; then your next sample PSU would be the one whose cumulant corresponds to the smallest value equal to or greater than 21.8.
Step 10: Add 21.8 to I, or 21.8 + 17.6 = 39.4; the next sample PSU is the one with cumulant corresponding to the smallest value equal to or greater than 39.4.
Step 11: Continue as above, through the urban EAs followed by the rural ones, until all 300 PSUs have been selected.

The two sample PSUs that are depicted in the illustration are those in EAs 003 of commune 01 and EA 002 of commune 03, both in district 01 and province 01. In the case of the first EA, its measure of size is 3, which would mean that three segments would have to be created, each of roughly 540 persons (1,630 divided by 3), and then one of the segments would be selected at random for listing and subsampling of households. In the second sample EA, two segments would be created, each containing about 590 persons, before selecting one of them at random.

The illustration demonstrates the many advantages of implicit stratification. First, it is very easy to achieve, merely requiring that the frame of enumeration areas be sorted geographically before then selecting the sample systematically with pps. Second, it automatically provides a sample of PSUs that is proportionately distributed by urban and rural and by province (or other geographic subdivisions). For example, if 10 percent of your population is located in province 12, then 10 percent of your sample will also be selected in that province. Third, it can be easily implemented on the computer.

Data Collection

Dates of Data Collection
Start End
2000-06 2000-07
Data Collection Mode
Face-to-face [f2f]
Data Collection Notes
The field staff , 36 regional supervisors and also enumerators of Tirana city were trained for four days in early May 2000. All regional teams (36 districts) , collected the data; each team was comprised of a number of interviewers, and a supervisor. A demonstration of how to use the UNICEF equipment and salt iodization test was done on the last day. The MICS Coordinator provided overall supervision. The field work began in June 2000 and concluded in the first week of July 2000. The field work was organized according to a set timetable. Strong communication was established among the enumerators, controllers, supervisors and the Coordinator during the survey. The team organized trips in various districts to provide information on how the enumerators and supervisors carried out their duties.

Questionnaires

Questionnaires
The questionnaires for the Albania MICS were based on the MICS Model Questionnaire with some modifications and additions. A household questionnaire was administered in each household, which collected various information on household members including sex, age, literacy, marital status, and orphaned children status. The household questionnaire also included education, child labor, water and sanitation, and salt iodization modules. In addition to a household questionnaire, questionnaires were administered in each household for women age 15-49 and children under age five. For children, the questionnaire was administered to the mother or caretaker of the child. The questionnaire for women contained the following modules:
- Child mortality
- Tetanus toxoid
- Maternal and newborn health
- Contraceptive use
- HIV/AIDS.

The questionnaire for children under age five included modules on:
- Birth registration and early learning
- Vitamin A
- Vitamin D
- Breastfeeding
- Care of Illness
- Respiratory illness
- Immunization
- Anthropometry.

From the MICS model English version, the questionnaires were translated into the Albanian language. The questionnaires were pre-tested during May 2000. Based on the results of the pretest, modifications were made to the wording and translation of the questionnaires.

Data Processing

Other Processing
Data was entered on four microcomputers using IMPS software. In order to ensure quality control, internal consistency checks were performed. Procedures and standard programs developed under MICS and adapted to the Albanian questionnaire were used throughout. Data processing began in July 2000 and finished in September 2000.

Access policy

Access conditions
MICS2 has put greater efforts in not only properly documenting the results published in the MICS2 country reports, but also to maximize the use of micro data sets via documentation and dissemination. For those MICS2 countries that granted UNICEF direct access to the micro data sets and documentation, a rigorous process was completed to ensure internal and external consistency, basic standards of data quality, corresponding documentation and, standardization of variable and value labels across countries.

For each country four SPSS data files were produced, corresponding to the four main units of analysis: households, household members, women in reproductive age (15-49 years of age) and children under the age of five. An additional Word file contains basic characteristics of the data such as year of the survey, sample sizes, weights, dictionary of variables and labels, and any existing limitations of the data files.

Although the format for the data sets is SPSS, these are compressed using WINZIP to facilitate their transfer.

Access to these datasets is restricted. Information on how to obtain access can be found at http://www.childinfo.org/mailform.php
Access authority
Name URL
UNICEF Link

Metadata production

DDI Document ID
DDI_ALB_2000_MICS_v01_M
Date of Metadata Production
2004-06-13
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