National Panel Survey 2012-2013

The data were collected using paper questionnaires that were key entered in the field concurrently with the data collection.

Preparations:
The field staff was trained in Morogoro in September 2012 over a period of four weeks with enumerator and data entry training done concurrently. During a standard training week, four days were spent in classroom, and one day in field training. On each Saturday of the training month, the field staff was debriefed on the previous day’s field exercise and what they had learned over the previous week. Over the four week training period, the field staff spent one week on the Household questionnaire, Agricultural questionnaire, Livestock/Fishery questionnaire and tracking, and field practice respectively. Over the training period, three tests were administered to the field teams. The goal was to gain feedback from the training sessions and to select the enumerators. Overall, there were 55 enumerator candidates, with 48 being selected. At the end of the training the enumerators were provided Kiswahili field manuals.

Prior to the training period, two pilot tests were conducted. In mid-July 2012, the new questionnaire instruments were piloted in Tanga. In early August 2012, the tracking pilot was conducted in Morogoro to test revisions to the tracking forms. Select households from an MCAT survey conducted in 2010 were revisited to provide the team supervisors practice with conducting tracking during fieldwork. After the pilots, extensive discussion and revisions were conducted with the participation of all team supervisors.

Field Work:
The main data collection began in October 2012 and finished in October 2013, with tracking fieldwork continuing until the end of November 2013. The survey was primarily implemented by seven mobile field teams, each composed of: one supervisor, five or six enumerators, one data entry technician, and one driver. In addition, there were also two dedicated mobile tracking teams that were each composed of: one supervisor, two enumerators, one data entry technician and one driver.

In NPS 2008/2009, enumeration areas (EAs) were selected and then households within those EAs were selected for the sample. For the third round, households from the second round were grouped into clusters. These third round clusters are very similar to the EAs from the second round in that they both consist of primarily the same households. However, each cluster also included both distance and local tracking cases from the second round that reside nearby but not in the same exact EA as the other households in that cluster. Efforts were made in the design of the clusters to be able to maintain the timing of the previous rounds survey.

Field teams visited each cluster for between 4-5 days. The questionnaires were administered to the selected households over the course of that time. This allowed the field team to make return visits to the household to complete the entire Household questionnaire, Agriculture questionnaire for farming households, and Livestock/Fisheries questionnaire for households engaged in livestock or fisheries activities. To ensure the depth and quality of each section of the survey, the questionnaire was administered across multiple respondents to the most knowledgeable about each topic. For all of the sampled households, areas of all owned and/or cultivated agricultural plots were measured via GPS unless the household refused, the terrain was too difficult, or if the plot was more than 1 hour from the location of the household. Anthropometric measurements were taken for all individuals that were at home, not too ill, and willing to participate.

Tracking:
Tracking consists of three stages: (1) determine the current status of the households and members of the households from the previous survey; (2) determine the location of any households that have moved together with all its members to a new location; and (3) determine the location of any eligible members who have moved from their household from either NPS 2008/2009 or NPS 2010/2011 to a new location. Eligibility for tracking of households and members was determined prior to the implementation of the survey. Members eligible for tracking were those who are over the age of 15 and not a live-in house servant. Any panel members not meeting this criteria were not tracked and were only included in the data when located and interviewed with an eligible member. Households eligible for tracking were those that moved to a new location within Tanzania. If a household moved to a different country, it was not tracked.

If an entire household had moved from the original residence, teams were required to complete a “T-1” form designed to capture relevant information from key informants on the whereabouts of the household. The T-1 form contains information that would enable tracking of household to its new location. If a member or members of the household have moved from the original household, a “T-2” form was completed by the teams. Similar to the T-1, a T-2 form contains information on the location of the member(s) who have moved from the household. Once the tracking targets had been located, teams were required to interview the household as consistent with the eligibility requirements.

Within the tracking protocol, there are local and distance tracking cases. Local and distance tracking applies to both households and individuals. Local tracking is defined as cases where the tracking target is within one hour driving distance from the original cluster and at least one tracking member from the household is eligible for tracking. For local tracking cases, the teams are required to interview the tracking target before leaving the original cluster. Distance tracking occurs when the tracking target resides in a location that is more than one hour driving distance from the original cluster. In this case, the teams fill out the appropriate tracking form and send the information to NBS headquarters. Once at NBS headquarters, the distance tracking case is given to one of the two dedicated tracking teams, who are then responsible for locating that household and conducting the interview.

Often households and members which have moved from their previous dwelling or household have relocated a great distance from their previous interview location. Given the inefficiency in searching for these members on a case by case basis across the country as they occur, field teams were not required to track households and members deemed to be too far away from the original location. Information on these cases was key entered and sent electronically to the NBS headquarters, compiled, and reviewed. After review an optimal tracking route was generated to guide the specialized tracking teams.

Distance tracking was divided into rounds with each round lasting approximately two months. The first round began interviews three months after the beginning of fieldwork to allow enough time to accumulate a sufficient number of distance tracking targets. At the start of each round, the new distance tracking cases would be compiled and grouped into geographic regions. The schedules for the two dedicated tracking teams for each round was determined by which geographic regions had the most distance tracking targets Any tracking target not located after each round would remain in the pool to be visited during the subsequent rounds, in addition to any new tracking cases that had accumulated in the intervening months. In addition, the regular field teams also sporadically would perform tracking within their interview regions if the distance tracking target resided in or very close to a cluster on their fieldwork schedule. Finally, following the completion of the main fieldwork activities, four dedicated tracking teams were dispatched to interview the remaining cases.