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. 2025 Apr 24;23(1):241.
doi: 10.1186/s12916-025-04062-6.

When health data go dark: the importance of the DHS Program and imagining its future

Jessie Jane Khaki  1   2 , Jil Molenaar  3   4 , Sulata Karki  5 , Emmanuel Olal  6 , Manuela Straneo  3   7 , Marie Alice Mosuse  8 , Jovanny Tsuala Fouogue  9 , Bernadette Hensen  3 , Adama Baguiya  10 , Angèle Musau Nkola  11 , Kerry L M Wong  12 , Oumar Aly Ba  13   14 , Amani Kikula  3   4   15 , Fassou Mathias Grovogui  16 , Aline Semaan  3   17 , Anteneh Asefa  3 , Peter M Macharia  18   19 , Chido Dziva Chikwari  20   21 , Mariame Oumar Ouédraogo  22 , Aliki Christou  3 , Emelda A Okiro  23 , Martin Kavao Mutua  24 , Abioye Amodu  25 , Mwelwa Phiri  26 , Rukundo Athanase  27 , David Lagoro Kitara  28 , Onikepe Owolabi  29 , Andrea B Pembe  15 , Bosede B Afolabi  30   31   32 , Lenka Beňová  3
Affiliations

When health data go dark: the importance of the DHS Program and imagining its future

Jessie Jane Khaki et al. BMC Med. .

Abstract

Background: The suspension and/or termination of many programmes funded through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) by the new US administration has severe short- and long-term negative impacts on the health of people worldwide. We draw attention to the termination of the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) Program, which includes nationally representative surveys of households, DHS, Malaria Indicator Surveys [MIS]) and health facilities (Service Provision Assessments [SPA]) in over 90 low- and middle-income countries. USAID co-funding and provision of technical support for these surveys has been shut down.

Main body: The impact of these disruptions will reverberate across local, regional, national, and global levels and severely impact the ability to understand the levels and changes in population health outcomes and behaviours. We highlight three key impacts on (1) ongoing data collection and data processing activities; (2) future data collection and consequent lack of population-level health indicators; and (3) access to existing data and lack of support for its use.

Conclusions: We call for immediate action on multiple fronts. In the short term, universal access to existing data and survey materials should be restored, and surveys which were planned or in progress should be completed. In the long term, this crisis should serve as a tipping point for transforming these vital surveys. We call on national governments, regional organisations, and international partners to develop sustainable alternatives that preserve the principles (standardised questionnaires, backward compatibility, open access data with rigorous documentation) which made the DHS Program an invaluable global health resource.

Keywords: DHS Program; Demographic and Health Survey; Demographic data; Funding; Health data; Low- and middle-income countries; Population surveys; Service Provision Assessment; USAID.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declarations. Ethics approval and consent to participate: Not applicable. Consent for publication: Not applicable. Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Screenshot of disruption in data access on DHS Program website, February 2, 2025 (source: authors)
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

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