Kagera Health and Development Survey (KHDS)

Photo by Mufumbiro Tours & Sa…, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=52746835

The Kagera Health and Development Survey (KHDS) is a study of the long-term wealth dynamics of households and individuals in northwestern Tanzania. This study involves a resurvey of a panel of households originally interviewed in four rounds from 1991 to 1994, with follow-up surveys conducted in 2004 and 2010. A multi-topic household questionnaire is administered to all split-off households originating from the baseline households, including those that have moved away from the baseline location. To the best of our knowledge, it constitutes the longest-running African panel data of this kind. 

The first KHDS paper appeared more than a quarter century ago, and since then, well over 100 research papers have been published using this data. Topics covered include HIV/AIDS, orphanhood, prime-aged adult death, migration, urbanization, inheritance, bride price, marriage, family networks, intergenerational persistence of poverty, and the long-term impact of HIV/AIDS. 

This website provides links to the main and auxiliary KHDS data. We are also working to keep track of KHDS-based research papers here. If you have completed KHDS-based research, please fill out this form, and we will add it to the list.

Fieldwork for the project was implemented by EDI, which also maintains a web page on KHDS, recommended for additional information and resources.