Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS)
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Household, health and living-standards surveys of low- and middle-income countries.
Key findings#
- From Nov 2023 to Oct 2026, 226 archived papers mentioned Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) in their title, abstract or keywords (the search of earlier months' full texts is still under way), most of them in Nov 2024 (12).
- Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) was mentioned in 9 papers in the last 30 days (2026-10-06 to 2026-11-04), ranking #36 of the 255 datasets mentioned.
- By journal category: Economics (5) and Health Economics and Policy (4).
- Most of them appeared in World Development (2), Social Science & Medicine (1) and World Development Perspectives (1).
- From 2017 to 2026 (so far), Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) was mentioned in 387 papers in the tracked journals, most of them in health economics and policy (237), economics (112) and statistics (15).
- 68 of them were published in 2025, against 11 in 2017.
- Since 2023, the institutions with the most of these papers were London School of Economics and Political Science (11), Johns Hopkins University (10) and Harvard University (9).
- The journals publishing most of them were World Development (29), Health Research Policy and Systems (21) and International Journal for Equity in Health (18).
- The most-cited of them is “Changes Over Time in Multidimensional Poverty: Methodology and Results for 34 Countries” (World Development, 2017), with 212 citations.
- Papers use Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) most often with Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys (32), Night-time lights (VIIRS, DMSP) (18) and World Development Indicators (World Bank) (16); it has 25 partners in the code and data network, in the group around World Development…, Eurostat, International Energy….
Mentions over 36 months#
| Trend | Nov 23–Oct 24 | Nov 24–Oct 25 | Nov 25–Oct 26 | 36 months |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 88 | 76 | 62 | 226 |
Papers per year#
20172026 (so far)
| Category | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | 2026 (so far) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Health Economics and Policy | 7 | 16 | 26 | 21 | 27 | 21 | 15 | 43 | 35 | 26 |
| Economics | 3 | 4 | 1 | 0 | 5 | 2 | 7 | 41 | 25 | 24 |
| Statistics | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 3 | 4 |
| AI | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 0 |
| Higher Education and Research | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 2 | 0 |
| Operations Research | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 2 |
| Finance | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| Management | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| All categories | 11 | 22 | 27 | 23 | 37 | 26 | 23 | 93 | 68 | 57 |
Where the papers come from#
| # | Journal | Papers |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | World Development | 29 |
| 2 | Health Research Policy and Systems | 21 |
| 3 | International Journal for Equity in Health | 18 |
| 4 | Health Economics Review | 17 |
| 5 | SSM - Population Health | 15 |
| 6 | Journal of Development Economics | 13 |
| 7 | Social Science & Medicine | 10 |
| 8 | Journal of Population Economics | 10 |
| 9 | Population Health Metrics | 7 |
| 10 | Journal of Public Health Policy | 6 |
| # | Institution | Papers |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | London School of Economics and Political Science | 11 |
| 2 | Johns Hopkins University | 10 |
| 3 | Harvard University | 9 |
| 4 | Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique | 8 |
| 5 | Institut de Recherche pour le Développement | 7 |
| 6 | Bahir Dar University | 6 |
| 7 | International Food Policy Research Institute | 6 |
| 8 | London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine | 6 |
| 9 | Makerere University | 6 |
| 10 | Queen Mary University of London | 6 |
| # | Country | Papers |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | United States | 68 |
| 2 | United Kingdom | 59 |
| 3 | Germany | 27 |
| 4 | Australia | 21 |
| 5 | France | 17 |
| 6 | Italy | 17 |
| 7 | Ethiopia | 15 |
| 8 | South Africa | 15 |
| 9 | Canada | 10 |
| 10 | Switzerland | 10 |
| # | Keyword | Papers |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | sub-Saharan Africa | 39 |
| 2 | low- and middle-income countries | 19 |
| 3 | maternal education | 17 |
| 4 | educational attainment | 16 |
| 5 | Demographic and Health Surveys | 15 |
| 6 | India | 14 |
| 7 | child stunting | 14 |
| 8 | household wealth | 14 |
| 9 | intimate partner violence | 13 |
| 10 | women's empowerment | 13 |
Most-cited papers#
| # | Citations | Per month | Title | Journal | Published | Authors |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 212 | 1.8 | Changes Over Time in Multidimensional Poverty: Methodology and Results for 34 Countries | World Development | 2017-03-07 | Sabina Alkire, José Manuel Roche, Ana Vaz |
| 2 | 186 | 1.9 | Women’s empowerment in East Africa: Development of a cross-country comparable measure | World Development | 2018-06-27 | Stephanie Spaid Miedema, Regine Haardörfer, Amy Webb Girard et al. |
| 3 | 165 | 1.6 | Development aid and infant mortality. Micro-level evidence from Nigeria | World Development | 2018-02-03 | Andreas Kotsadam, Gudrun Østby, Siri Aas Rustad et al. |
| 4 | 131 | 6.1 | The proper application of logistic regression model in complex survey data: a systematic review | BMC Medical Research Methodology | 2025-01-22 | Devjit Dey, Md. Samio Haque, Md. Mojahedul Islam et al. |
| 5 | 84 | 2.5 | Aid effectiveness and donor motives | World Development | 2024-01-15 | Axel Dreher, Valentin Lang, Bernhard Reinsberg |
Used together with#
| Used with | Type | Papers using both | Lift |
|---|---|---|---|
| Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys | Dataset | 32 | 63.1 |
| Night-time lights (VIIRS, DMSP) | Dataset | 18 | 6.4 |
| World Development Indicators (World Bank) | Dataset | 16 | 2.1 |
| Afrobarometer / Latinobarometro | Dataset | 12 | 17.5 |
| IPUMS | Dataset | 12 | 9.8 |
| Global Burden of Disease | Dataset | 10 | 2.4 |
| MODIS | Dataset | 7 | 2.1 |
| Eurostat | Dataset | 6 | 0.5 |
| International Energy Agency (IEA) | Dataset | 6 | 0.8 |
| Labour Force Surveys | Dataset | 6 | 2.2 |
| Gallup World Poll | Dataset | 5 | 2.4 |
| US health surveys (NHANES, BRFSS, MEPS) | Dataset | 5 | 2.2 |
| Date | Title | Journal | Authors | Affiliations |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-11-01 | Digital Access as a Conditional Resource: Women's Barriers to Health Care in 20 Demographic and Health Surveys | Social Science & Medicine | Jie Zhuo | |
| 2026-10-23 | The long-term impacts of flood exposure on fertility, child loss, and educational attainment in India | World Development Perspectives | Iverson-Love Joseph | Équipe de Recherche sur l’Utilisation des Données Individuelles en Lien avec la Théorie Économique; Université Gustave Eiffel |
| 2026-10-21 | The impact of regional growth on internal migration: a district-level analysis for Malawi | World Development | Mauro Lanati, Rainer Thiele | University of Florence; Kiel Institute for the World Economy; Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel |
| 2026-10-20 | Regional favoritism and educational attainment in Africa | Journal of Population Economics | Zareh Asatryan, Thushyanthan Baskaran, Patrick Hufschmidt et al. | Centre for European Economic Research; University of Münster; Ruhr University Bochum; … |
| 2026-10-15 | Economic uncertainty and fertility cycles: baby boom and busts in twentieth century USA | Journal of Economic Growth | Bastien Chabé-Ferret, Paula E. Gobbi | Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research; Middlesex University London; Université Libre de Bruxelles |
| 2026-10-13 | SES and growth in stature during early adulthood in low- and middle-income countries | Economics & Human Biology | Alessandro Tarozzi | Universitat Pompeu Fabra; Barcelona School of Economics; European University Institute |
| 2026-10-09 | Drought, women’s time poverty, and the development costs of water collection in Sub-Saharan Africa | World Development | Xueyang Wang, Wenling Liu | Beijing Institute of Technology |
| 2026-10-08 | Cognitively healthy life expectancy of older women and men in India | SSM - Population Health | Sneha Sarah Mani, Yuan S Zhang, Lindsay C. Kobayashi et al. | Johns Hopkins University; Columbia University; University of Michigan; … |
| 2026-10-07 | Building climate-resilient health systems for the displaced: health information systems and the statistical invisibility of climate-related mobility in sub-Saharan Africa | Health Policy OPEN | R. Leone, Y. Ouattara, Livia Tognaccini et al. | Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore; Sapienza University of Rome; Saint Camillus International University of Health and Medical Sciences |
Cite this page
Scholar4AI. (2026). Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS). Journal and Conference Research Rankings. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://scholar4ai.com/datasets/demographic-and-health-surveys-dhs
@misc{scholar4ai-datasets-demographic-and-health-surveys-dhs,
author = {{Scholar4AI}},
title = {Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS)},
year = {2026},
howpublished = {\url{https://scholar4ai.com/datasets/demographic-and-health-surveys-dhs}},
urldate = {2026-11-04},
note = {Journal and Conference Research Rankings; data from OpenAlex (CC0); licensed CC BY-NC 4.0}
}