Estimation of household smoke-exposure risk using Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) data

Abstract

We introduce Stata and R codes to estimate the household smoke-exposure risk (SER) variable using cooking fuel- and cooking place-related information obtained from country-level demographic and health survey (DHS) data. Two categories of cooking fuels (smoke-producing and non-smoke producing fuels) and two categories of cooking places (indoor and outdoor) are used to estimate the household SER. Finally, household SER is classified into four levels of risk: high (cooking indoor using smoke-producing fuels), medium (cooking outdoor using smoke-producing fuels), low (cooking indoor using non-smoke-producing fuels), and very low (cooking outdoor using non-smoke-producing fuels). An example of a household SER calculation using the DHS data and codes is provided for clarification. The available DHS data of over 90 countries contain both cooking fuel- and cooking place-related information, so the method of estimating household SER would be the same for these countries.•Household-level cooking fuel and cooking place data can be used to estimate household SER.•This paper illustrates an estimation technique for household smoke-exposure risk (SER) using demographic and health survey (DHS) data.•This method can be used to estimate household SER data for any country on the DHS country list.