West Africa Coastal Vulnerability Mapping: Demographic and Health Survey Data Sets

The West Africa Coastal Vulnerability Mapping: Demographic and Health Survey Data Sets present grids of maternal education levels and household wealth based on Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) cluster level data for ten West African countries. While the maternal education levels are comparable across countries, owing to different underlying indicators, the household wealth index is not. Education can directly influence risk perception, skills and knowledge and indirectly reduce poverty, improve health, and promote access to information and resources. When facing natural hazards or climate risks, educated individuals, households, and societies are assumed to be more empowered and more adaptive in their response to, preparation for, and recovery from disasters. Education is a key background indicator that helps contextualize a country's health and development situation. The household wealth index is a composite measure of a household's cumulative living standard. The wealth index is calculated using easy-to-collect data on a household's ownership of selected assets, such as televisions and bicycles, materials used for housing construction, and types of water access and sanitation facilities. Bayesian spatial interpolation methods were employed to create country level grids based on DHS cluster point data for each country. Data are from the following dates by country: Benin (2006), Cameroon (2011), Cote d'Ivoire (2012), Ghana (2008), Guinea (2012), Liberia (2011), Nigeria (2010), Sierra Leone (2008), and Togo (1998).