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Demographic and Health Survey 2003 - IPUMS Subset

Ghana, 2003
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Reference ID
GHA_2003_DHS_v01_M_v02_A_IPUMS
Producer(s)
Ghana Statistical Service, Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research, and ORC Macro., Minnesota Population Center
Metadata
DDI/XML JSON
Created on
Sep 19, 2018
Last modified
Sep 19, 2018
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112583

Body Mass Index (BMI) for respondents to the women's survey (B_BIOFBMI)

Data file: GHA2003-B.dat

Overview

Type: Discrete
Decimal: 0
Start: 1067
End: 1070
Width: 4
Range: -
Format: Numeric

Questions and instructions

Literal question
316A. For how long have you been using (CURRENT METHOD) now without stopping?

PROBE: In what month and year did you start using (CURRENT METHOD) continuously?

MONTH___
YEAR_____
Categories
Value Category
9995 Flagged cases
9998 Missing
9999 NIU (not in universe)
Warning: these figures indicate the number of cases found in the data file. They cannot be interpreted as summary statistics of the population of interest.

Description

Definition
BIOFBMI (V445) reports the female respondent's body mass index (BMI). BMI is an anthropometric measure relating weight to height, equal to body weight (kilograms) divided by height (meters) squared (W/(H^2)). Also known as the Quetelet Index, BMI is a measure of acute nutritional status, based on the Fogarty Metropolitan Life tables of ideal weight for height.

The DHS Guide to Statistics offers the following guidelines for interpreting BMI scores for women age 15-49:

Severely thin: less than 16.0
Moderately thin: 16.0 to 16.9
Mildly thin: 17.0 to 18.4
Normal: 18.5 to 24.9
Overweight: 25.0 to 29.9
Obese: 30.0 or more

The original height and weight values used to calculate BMI are also included in IPUMS-DHS. WEIGHTFEM (V437) reports the respondent's weight in kilograms, as measured by DHS personnel; HEIGHTFEM (V438) reports the person's length or height in centimeters, as measured by DHS personnel.

For an alternate measure of female nutrition, IPUMS-DHS users may also be interested in BIOFROHRER (V446), which reports the respondent's Rohrer's Index. This measure is equal to body weight (kilograms) divided by height (meters) cubed (W/(H^3)).

concept

Concept
var_concept.title Vocabulary
Female anthropometry Variables -- TOPICS IPUMS
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