Table 4

Main sources of penalty for 87 nutrition surveys, Darfur, Sudan, June 2004 - December 2008

Nutrition surveys penalized for the criterion (%)

Selection of basic sampling unit

1) No cross-checking of the source for population size

51

2) Household selection in cluster sampling done by the "spin the

pen" method

76

3) Further household selection by proximity with no interval

between households

72

4) No definition of household

60

5) No description of revisit strategy

53

6) Number of nonresponding households not reported

92

Nutrition data collection

1) No evidence that standardization of measurements was

performed

69

2) No evidence that interviewers explained that the survey would

not affect relief allocation for the household

87

3) No evidence of field supervision, including direct observation of

interviews by investigators

85

4) No evidence that data collection forms were checked at the

end of each day by investigators

95

5) Absence of detailed description of the accuracy of the material

used for weight measurements

49

6) Absence of detailed description of the accuracy of the material

used for height measurements

100

7) Absence of detailed description of the accuracy of the material

used for MUAC measurements

97

8) Inclusion of children based on age or height

74

9) No report of the percentage of children with age estimated from

birth certificate

48

Analysis of nutrition data

1) No information on number of data discarded from the analysis

because of child's inclusion errors or anthropometric flags

42

2) No evidence that adjustment of standard errors for clustering

was done, when relevant

38

3) No information about standard deviation of weight-for-height

index

70

Prudhon et al. Population Health Metrics 2011 9:57   doi:10.1186/1478-7954-9-57