overview
Produced by UNICEF, the Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys (MICS) come from interviews conducted at the household level in over 100 countries. Since MICS began in 1995, it has carried out over 300 surveys that focus on women and children, and the issues that affect them. It is a major source of data for indicators used to measure the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).*
*This description is a paraphrased version of the description on the UNICEF website.
Available data file formats
SPSS.
Accessibility
This data source requires registration and login information to access the data. Note once registered, the request for data is reviewed within 3 business days. Therefore, the data is not immediately accessible.
Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys
How to retrieve data by example
Scenario
Suppose you wish to obtain survey data on the nutritional status of women and children in Uzbekistan.
Step-by-step
- Go to the Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys website and select Uzbekistan for the filter Any country. Click Apply filters.
- As of now, only the 2006 and 2000 surveys have been completed. You choose to look at 2006 since it is more recent.
- To be sure it has the information you are looking for, click on Final in the Report column of the 2006 survey. A dropdown menu of language options for the report will appear. For this scenario, the options are English, Russian, and Uzbek. Once the language is selected you will be taken to the report in the form of a PDF document.
- Page 2 of the report contains a table of contents. Looking here, section 5 is labelled Nutrition, which includes information on nutritional status, breastfeeding, salt iodization, vitamin A supplements, and low birth weight. The table of contents also has a list of tables that are provided towards the end of the report, which contains tables on the information provided in each section. Looking here, Tables 7 through 13 on pages 78-84 contain the information from the Nutrition section. This ensures the dataset will have the information you are looking for.
- Now that you know the dataset contains your desired information, go back to the survey results page. Click on Available in the Datasets column to download the data.
- If you are not already registered, you will be taken to a login page where you can register. Notice when filling out your information, the note at the bottom states your request will be reviewed within 3 business days.
- Once you have been granted access, log back in to the website and click on Available again for the same dataset you requested access for. The data will then download to your computer in a zip file.
You should now have access to the raw data on the nutritional status of women and children in Uzbekistan. The format of this data file is an SPSS file.
Be sure to consult with the source website on how to properly cite your data. For this scenario, the citation is provided on the third page of the report associated with that survey round (MICS3) for that country (Uzbekistan). The suggested citation is given below:
UNICEF and State Statistical Committee of the Republic of Uzbekistan. 2007. Uzbekistan Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey 2006, Final Report. Tashkent, Uzbekistan: UNICEF