South Africa Demographic and Health Survey 2016
South Africa

South Africa, 2016

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Reference ID

zaf-doh-statssa-dhs-2016-v1

DOI

https://doi.org/10.25828/6nyy-xw50

Producer(s)

National Department of Health, Medical Research Council, Statistics South Africa

Collections

DHS Program

Metadata

Documentation in PDF DDI/XML JSON

Created on

Mar 22, 2019

Last modified

Aug 26, 2026

Page views

2438152

Downloads

3483

Identification

Survey ID number

zaf-doh-statssa-dhs-2016-v1

Title

South Africa Demographic and Health Survey 2016

Subtitle

South Africa

Abbreviation or Acronym

SADHS 2016

Country

Name	Country code
South Africa	zaf

Study type

Demographic and Health Survey

Series Information

The South Africa Demographic and Health Survey series comprises nationally representative household surveys that collect demographic and health indicators for South Africa. The 1987 round was implemented by the Human Sciences Research Council. The 1998 survey was implemented by the Department of Health with the Medical Research Council and technical assistance from Macro International. The 2016 survey was implemented by Statistics South Africa with the South African Medical Research Council and technical assistance from ICF through The DHS Program. A 2003 survey was also conducted, but its data is not publicly available. Together, the documented rounds provide indicators on fertility, infant and childhood mortality, family planning, maternal and child health, adult health, and related topics.

Abstract

The South Africa Demographic and Health Survey 2016 is the third DHS conducted in South Africa and follows surveys carried out in 1998 and 1987. The SADHS 2016 was designed to provide up-to-date information on key indicators needed to track progress in South Africa’s health programmes.

Kind of Data

Survey data

Unit of Analysis

Households and individuals

Version

Version Description

v1: Edited, anonymised data for public distribution

Version Date

2019

Scope

Notes

The scope of this survey includes fertility and childhood mortality levels, pregnancy-related mortality, fertility preferences and contraceptive use, utilisation of maternal and child health services, children’s nutritional status and child feeding practices, behaviour towards the risk of HIV infection, and measures of physical and sexual violence against women. In addition, among adults age 15 and older, use of tobacco and alcohol; the prevalence of malnutrition, hypertension, anaemia, diabetes, and HIV; and other indicators relevant to adult health were assessed.

Coverage

Geographic Coverage

The survey was designed to provide representative estimates for main demographic and health indicators for the country as a whole, for urban and non-urban areas separately, and for each of the nine provinces in South Africa: Western Cape, Eastern Cape, Northern Cape, Free State, KwaZulu-Natal, North West, Gauteng, Mpumalanga, and Limpopo.

Geographic Unit

The lowest level of geographical area covered by the data is Census 2011 enumeration area (EA)

Universe

The South African Demographic and Health Survey (SADHS) covered the population living in private households in the country.

Producers and sponsors

Primary investigators

Name	Affiliation
National Department of Health	Government of South Africa
Medical Research Council	Government of South Africa
Statistics South Africa	Government of South Africa

Producers

Name	Role
ICF (formerly Macro International)	Technical assistance

Funding Agency/Sponsor

Name	Abbreviation	Role
Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (Global Fund)	GF	Funder
Government of South Africa		Funder
United Nations Children's Fund	UNICEF	Funder
European Union	EU	Funder
United Nations Population Fund	UNFPA	Funder

Sampling

Sampling Procedure

The sample for the SA DHS 2016 is a stratified sample selected in two stages from the Master Sampling Frame. Stratification was achieved by separating each province into urban, traditional, and farm areas. In total, 26 sampling strata were created (since there are no traditional areas in Western Cape). Samples were selected independently in each sampling stratum by a two-stage selection. Implicit stratification and proportional allocation were achieved at each of the lower administrative levels within a given sampling stratum by sorting the sampling frame according to administrative units at different levels in each stratum and using probability proportional to size selection at the first stage of sampling.

Response Rate

Of the total 972 PSUs that were selected, fieldwork was not implemented in three PSUs due to concerns about the safety of the interviewers and the questionnaires for another three PSUs were lost in transit. The data file contains information for a total of 966 PSUs. A total of 12,860 households was selected for the sample and 12,247 were successfully interviewed. The shortfall is primarily due to refusals and to dwellings that were vacant or in which the inhabitants had left for an extended period at the time they were visited by interviewing teams.

Of the 12,638 households occupied 97 percent were successfully interviewed. In these households, 12,327 women were identified as eligible for the individual women's interview (15-49) and interviews were completed with 11,735 or 95 percent of them. In the one half of the households that were selected for inclusion in the adult health survey 14,928 eligible adults age 15 and over were identified of which 13,827 or 93 percent were interviewed. The principal reason for non-response among eligible women and men was the failure to find them at home despite repeated visits to the household. The refusal rate was about 2 percent.

Weighting

Due to the nonproportional allocation of the sample to the different survey domains and to their urban and non-urban areas, sampling weights will be required for any analysis using the SADHS 2016 data to ensure
the actual representativeness of the survey results at the national level and as well as the domain level. Since the SADHS 2016 sample is a two-stage stratified cluster sample, sampling weights were based on sampling probabilities calculated separately for each sampling stage and for each cluster.

Survey instrument

Questionnaires

Five questionnaires were used in the SA DHS 2016. Interviewers used tablet computers to record responses during interviews.

Data collection

Dates of Data Collection

Start	End
2016-06-27	2016-11-04

Data Collection Mode

Face-to-face

Data Collectors

Name	Affiliation	Abbreviation
Statistics South Africa	Government of South Africa	statssa

Supervision

The survey protocol was reviewed and approved by the SAMRC Ethics Committee and the ICF Institutional Review Board.

Data appraisal

Estimates of Sampling Error

Sampling errors are computed in SAS, using programs developed by ICF. These programs use the Taylor linearization method to estimate variances for survey estimates that are means, proportions, or ratios. The Jackknife repeated replication method is used for variance estimation of more complex statistics such as fertility and mortality rates.

access_policy

Access authority

Name	Affiliation	URL	Email
DataFirst	University of Cape Town		support@data1st.org

Access conditions

Public access data for use under a Creative Commons CC-BY (Attribution-only) License

Citation requirements

South African National Department of Health, South African Medical Research Council, Statistics South Africa. Demographic and Health Survey 2016, South Africa [dataset]. Version 1. Pretoria: NDoH, SAMRC, Statistics SA [producers], 2019. Cape Town: DataFirst [distributor], 2019. DOI: https://doi.org/10.25828/6nyy-xw50

Metadata production

Producers

Name	Affiliation	Role
DataFirst	University of Cape Town	Metadata Producer

Metadata version

DDI Document version

Version 5

Version date

2026-08-26

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South Africa Demographic and Health Survey 2016 South Africa