Abstract
Due to an urgent need for information on the coverage of health service
for women and children after the fall of Taliban regime in Afghanistan,
a multiple indicator cluster survey (MICS) was conducted in 2003 using
the outdated 1979 census as the sampling frame. When 2004 pre-census
data became available, population-sampling weights were generated based
on the survey-sampling scheme. Using these weights, the population
estimates for seven maternal and child healthcare-coverage indicators
were generated and compared with the unweighted MICS 2003 estimates.
The use of sample weights provided unbiased estimates of population
parameters. Results of the comparison of weighted and unweighted
estimates showed some wide differences for individual provincial
estimates and confidence intervals. However, the mean, median and
absolute mean of the differences between weighted and unweighted
estimates and their confidence intervals were close to zero for all
indicators at the national level. Ranking of the five highest and the
five lowest provinces on weighted and unweighted estimates also yielded
similar results. The general consistency of results suggests that
outdated sampling frames can be appropriate for use in similar
situations to obtain initial estimates from household surveys to guide
policy and programming directions. However, the power to detect change
from these estimates is lower than originally planned, requiring a
greater tolerance for error when the data are used as a baseline for
evaluation. The generalizability of using outdated sampling frames in
similar settings is qualified by the specific characteristics of the
MICS 2003-low replacement rate of clusters and zero probability of
inclusion of clusters created after the 1979 census.