Throughout the MICS programme’s history, the vast majority of countries have shared their datasets for public use. Data sharing policies supported by MICS have improved the breath of data available to researchers at the country level and provided datasets for regional and global analysis as well as cross-country comparisons. To encourage further data use and to increase data discoverability within the research community, MICS has published in Studies in Family Planning, a data paper on MICS datasets.
The open access paper covers key information about MICS, including the geographic coverage of surveys, modules used in the latest round, essential sampling techniques, and specifics on the data themselves such as data quality, timing of data collection and how to access MICS data. The MICS programme hopes that this technical resource will help to improve the use of the MICS datasets and therefore increase the return on the investment for the surveys.