Demographic and Health Surveys

Summarize which countries, surveys, years, and breakdowns have data for a given indicator as a coverage overview. Requires indicator_id or indicator_ids. Use this to scope an analysis (for example, which countries have a recent survey for an indicator) before retrieving values.

Return the full metadata for a single known indicator ID (definition, denominator, measurement type), and optionally a summary of which countries, surveys, and years have data for it (set include_availability=true). Use this to confirm an indicator ID is valid and to check coverage before retrieving data. Returns an error with a retry hint if the ID does not exist.

List DHS countries and their two-letter country codes, optionally filtered by indicator, survey, year, or survey type. Use this to resolve a country name to the code used elsewhere, or to find which countries have a given survey or indicator.

List recent additions and revisions to DHS data, optionally filtered by an update date (last_update, in YYYYMMDD form). Use this to find what has changed since a given date.

List downloadable DHS dataset (microdata recode) files by country, survey, file type, and format. Use this to locate microdata files such as the KR or IR recodes. This tool does not return aggregated indicator values; use search_dhs_indicator_data for those.

List available subnational boundary (geometry) metadata for surveys, without returning full boundary coordinates by default. Use return_fields to request specific metadata fields; include Coordinates only when you explicitly need WKT polygon coordinates.

Browse or enumerate DHS indicators and their metadata by topic, tag, country, or survey, when you want to scan the catalog rather than match a keyword. For keyword lookups, prefer search_dhs_indicators_by_text. Returns indicator definitions and IDs, not survey values.

List DHS reports and publications by country, survey, year, survey type, indicator, or tag. Returns document metadata and links, not survey values.

Discover the survey-characteristic filters and their IDs that can be used to narrow other queries, for example special survey modules or sample definitions. Use this to find a survey_characteristic_id before passing it to another tool.

List DHS surveys (for example SN2023DHS) by country, year, survey type, or status. Use this to discover exact survey IDs and the survey years available before retrieving data, or to check whether a recent survey exists for a country. Set latest_per_country=true or select_surveys='latest' to return the most recent matching survey per country; use select_surveys='byIndicator' with indicator_id/indicator_ids to return the latest matching survey that has data for the requested indicator.

List the DHS topic tags and their numeric tag IDs, for example the tags for family planning or malaria. Use this to find a tag_id, then pass it to list_dhs_indicators or search_dhs_indicator_data to filter by topic.

Dry-run validator that normalizes and confirms filter values (country names or codes, survey IDs, indicator IDs, survey types, year ranges) WITHOUT running a data query. Call this when you are unsure whether a country name, survey ID, or survey type label will be accepted, so you can avoid a failed data call. Returns the normalized values the other tools will use.