Are health and demographic surveillance system estimates sufficiently generalisable?

Abstract

Sampling rules do not apply in a Health and Demographic Surveillance System (HDSS) that covers exhaustively a district-level population and is not meant to be representative of a national population. We highlight the advantages of HDSS data for causal analysis and identify in the literature the principles of conditional generalisation that best apply to HDSS. A probabilistic view on HDSS data is still justified by the need to model complex causal inference. Accounting for contextual knowledge, reducing omitted-variable bias, detailing order of events, and high statistical power brings credence to HDSS data. Generalisation of causal mechanisms identified in HDSS data is consolidated through systematic comparison and triangulation with national or international data.