Application of iterative hybrid MI approach to household survey data with complex dependence structures

Abstract

The multiple indicator cluster survey (MICS) is a household survey tool designed to obtain internationally comparable, statistically rigorous data of standardized indicators related to the health situation of children and women. Missing data in a large number of categorical variables are a serious concern for MICS, following complex dependency structures and inconsistency problems that impose severe challenges to the investigators. Despite the popularity of multiple imputation of missing data, its acceptance and application still lag in large-scale studies with complicated data sets such as MICS. We propose interdependent hybrid multiple imputation (HMI) techniques which combines features of existing MI approaches to handle complex missing data in large scale household surveys. The iterative HMI approach is observed to be a good competitor to the existing approaches, with often smaller root mean square errors, empirical standard errors and standard errors. Regardless of any combination, the iterative HMI method is markedly superior to the existing MI methods in terms of computational efficiency. Results from household data example support the capacity of proposed method to handle complex missing data.

Keywords:

• Complex
• Household data
• Hybrid multiple imputation
• MICS
• Survey data
• Word