AIDSQuest: The HIV/AIDS Survey Library
Survey Summaries

World Health Organization—Multi-country Study on Women’s Health and Life Experiences

Overview
This questionnaire was used to conduct a multi-country study on women’s health and domestic violence in Bangladesh, Brazil, Japan, Namibia, Peru, Samoa, Thailand, and the Tanzania. The Department of Gender, Women, and Health/WHO and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine developed the survey with input from members of the Core Research Team, notably from the international NGO, PATH. It attempted to overcome the obstacles to comparability encountered in previous studies by carrying out population-based surveys using a standardized questionnaire, with standardized training and procedures across sites.

Methodology/validity
The questionnaire consists of an administration form, a household selection form, a household questionnaire, a women’s questionnaire, and a reference sheet. The women’s questionnaire includes an individual consent form and 12 sections designed to obtain details about the respondent and her community, her general and reproductive health, her financial autonomy, her children, her partner, her experiences of partner and non-partner violence, and the impact of violence on her life.

Formative research informed the design of the questionnaire and included interviews with key informants, in-depth interviews with survivors of violence, and focus group discussions with women and men of different age groups. Members of the study’s expert steering committee reviewed early drafts of the questionnaire with input from experts in the different areas covered in the questionnaire. The questionnaire was pre-tested by the country research teams involved in the WHO study.

Researching Violence Against Women: A Practical Guide for Researchers and Activists was developed by the same group for conducting studies on domestic violence and other sensitive topics (see Appendix B). Other materials developed (protocol; manuals for facilitators, interviewers, and supervisors; notes on use of the survey, etc.) are available to researchers and others that want to replicate the study. For more information on the design and implementation of this survey as well as results from its use in the above-mentioned countries, please see the WHO Multi-country Study on Women’s Health and Domestic Violence against Women (Garcia-Moreno et al. 2005).

Garcia-Moreno, Claudia et al. 2005. WHO Multi-country Study on Women’s Health and Domestic Violence against Women. Geneva: WHO. (offsite link)

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This page updated 21 August 2006

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