Data Collection Notes
The Preparation stage for the survey has started on 1/1/2008; the coordination among all stages of survey implementation has been taken into consideration. The activities of office editing, coding, data processing and validation were held at the same time with data collection, preliminary tabulations have been generated quarterly for the purpose of checking survey results which have been contrasted with the corresponding results of the previous survey.
The survey period of the 2008-2009 HIECS extends over 12 month-period, starting from April 2008 and ending in March 2009. Households were observed for two continuous weeks only, to collect information on food expenditure, instead of one month as was followed in the previous rounds of the HIECS. The observation period was shortened in this HIECS round to lighten the respondent burden and thus encourage more cooperation.
Conventionally, the entire survey period is divided into four exclusive quarters, the first quarter includes the first three months (April, May, and June); the second quarter consists of the following three months, and so on till the fourth quarter. The rationale behind this division scheme is to extract preliminary results on each quarter independently, for the purpose of either assessing the quality of survey results, especially in its early stages of implementation, or to conduct meaningful comparative analysis with the similar quarter of previous HIECS rounds once the preliminary results were judged acceptable.
In response to the requirements mentioned above, the entire sample is to be divided among the four quarters. A decision was made to cover the whole first stage sample (2526 EA's) in all the survey quarters, but with a sample of 4 or 5 households to be observed from each EA in each quarter.
In order to accomplish an appropriate allocation scheme of the sample over the entire survey period, the first stage sample was randomly divided into six equal (or approximately equal) sub-samples; each of these sub-samples was assigned to a certain 2-week survey period. The first sub-sample had been observed in the first two weeks of April; the second sub-sample in the second two week of April; the third sub- sample in the first 2 weeks of May; and so on till the sixth sub-sample which is to observed in the last two weeks of June. Considerations are also made such that the EA's which are to be observed in the first two weeks of any month in the first quarter are to be observed in the second two weeks of the corresponding month in the second quarter, and conversely for EA's observed in the second 2 week of any month in the first quarter. Evidently, the sample allocation over the six 2-week periods of the first and second quarters will be repeated in the third and fourth quarters respectively. As a result of this allocation scheme, each sample EA will be observed two times in the first 2 weeks and two times in the second 2 weeks of the corresponding months.
As mentioned before, only 5 and sometimes 4 sample households are to be observed from each EA in each of the survey quarters. The list of the whole cluster of 19 (20) households was divided, into a sub-sample of 5 or 4 households, each of which will be observed in the successive survey quarters.
The reference period over which data was collected varies according to the type of data item as follows:
15 days: for expenditure on food and beverages.
Month: ended by the end of survey period as alcoholic beverages, tobacco and narcotics, housing and its accessories goods and services for routine household maintenance, health, operation of personal transport equipments, transport services, restaurants and hotels, personal care and other services n.e.c.
Quarterly: ended by the end of survey period as, expenditure on health, Communication.
Annually: ended by the end of survey period as, expenditure for clothing and footwear, housing and its accessories, furnishings, household equipments and routine maintenance of the house , health, transport, communication, recreation and culture ,education, restaurants and hotels and miscellaneous goods and services.
It is worth noting that in some cases the groups of commodities or services include more than one period such as health which has monthly, quarterly and annually items depending upon the consumption frequency of these items.