About API

The DTM Humanitarian Needs Assessment (HNA) or Multi-sectoral Needs Assessment (MSNA) API provides non-sensitive information on the needs and conditions of households in communities affected by internal displacement. While HNA assessments are conducted at the household level, the data made available via the API is aggregated the administrative (admin) 2 level. HNA assessments are conducted annually; therefore, the data is presented by a country and year. The minimum number of households for each data point is 10 households. The population categories in the data include: IDPs, IDP returnees, and the non-displaced.

Scope and Data Availability Level

HNA assessments are conducted on an annual cycle; therefore, the data should be understood as the HNA assessment for a specific country in a specific year. The DTM HNA API shares data stored at the admin 2 level by population category. The aggregated data made available via the API includes the following thematic information:

• Location (Geography): Location of assessment up to admin 2 level
• Demographics: Household size and age/sex composition as well as the population category (IDP, IDP returnee, or non-displaced)
• Displacement: Reason for displacement
• Food security and livelihoods (FSL): Food Consumption Score (FCS), Household Hunger Scale (HHS), Reduced Coping Strategy Index (rCSI), Livelihood Coping Strategy (LCS)
• Shelter: Shelter damage and Shelter enclosure issues
• Health: Healthcare access barriers
• WASH: Sanitation problems
• Multi-sector needs: Priority needs

Data types and aggregation

All the data is from household level assessments and is therefore aggregated depending on the data type either as the sum, mean value, or percentage value.

Numerical data

The numerical data (provided for a specific population category within an admin 2 unit) provided includes:

• Number of households: Sum of the number of households
• Number of individuals: Sum of the number of individuals
• Mean number of individuals: This is presented as the mean number of individuals
• Mean number of individuals for 6 demographic groups (female and male across three age groups: 0-17, 18-59, and 60+): This is presented as the mean for each demographic group
• Mean (average) number of the female and male: This is presented as the mean of the female and male individuals.

Categorical data

Mutually exclusive data

This refers to questions where each household typically provides one response and in the case of the composite indicators, the final categories are mutually exclusive (i.e., a household can only belong to one category).

Reason for displacement

The reason of displacement is categorized under the following categories:

• Conflict
• Disaster (climate)
• Disaster (non-climate)
• Other

Note: The final data presents the four indicators above as the percentage number of households displaced due to the reason. In some cases, IDP returnee households provided data on their reason for displacement.

Composite indicators (Food Security and Livelihood)

Under the single-selected variables, there are composite indicators (categories in brackets) including:

• Food consumption score (Acceptable, Borderline, or Poor)
• Household Hunger scale (None, Little, Moderate, Severe, or Very severe)
• Livelihood coping strategy (No coping strategies, Stress coping strategies, Crisis coping strategies, or Emergency coping strategies)
• Reduced Coping strategy index (Phase 1, Phase 2, Phase 3, or Phase 4)

The categorization a household under one of the viable categories for each composite indicator is based on WFP’s Vulnerability and Analysis Mapping methodology, except for the Household Hunger Scale (HHS). DTM’s methodology for the HHS uses 5 (mentioned above) categories as opposed to 3 categories (Little to no hunger, Moderate hunger, or Severe hunger).

Note: For the four composite indicators, the score is only calculated for households that provided information on all the underlying indicators that go into the composite indicator. Therefore, if a household does not provide all the required information a score cannot be calculated and the household will not be assigned a score or category.

For the four indicators above, the aggregated data reports the percentage of households falling within each category. In locations where all households provided all the underlying information the sum from all the categories is 100 per cent. Where the sum is less than 100 per cent, the difference represents the percentage of households that did not provide all the required data for the composite indicators. Therefore, the percentages should be interpreted alongside the number of households and number of household members for example, a percentage based on 10 households should be interpreted differently from one based on more than 100 households. In addition to the percentage breakdown of the categories the mean score is also available in the API.

Multiple-choice variables

This refers to questions where each household provides more than one response typically up to 3 responses for example, the barrier(s) preventing household members from accessing healthcare.

Note: All the response options used for the 5 indicators below are based on DTM’s Data Kit and Question Bank, a consolidated set of questions and answer options used in DTM surveys. Therefore, for this version of the API, all answer options included in the data but not the DTM Question Bank are not included in the consolidated and aggregated data. With more datasets and consolidation as well as updates to the Question Banks, this is subject to change.

The multiple-choice indicators include:

• Shelter damage: physical damage to a shelter that affects its structural integrity or habitability for example, damaged doors or windows.
• Shelter enclosure issues: problems related to a shelter’s ability to provide protection from weather, temperature, or privacy concerns.
• Barriers preventing access to healthcare: factors that prevent household members from obtaining healthcare for example, financial or security reasons.
• Sanitation problems: issues pertaining to availability, accessibility of sanitation facilities among other sanitation-related challenges.
• Household priority needs: typically, the 3 most urgent household needs identified by the household where they would require assistance.

As households can provide more than one response for these indicators, the percentages represent the percentage of households that stated a response (issue, barrier, or need) and are not expected to sum up to 100 per cent across each row (population group at admin 2).

Definitions

Internally Displaced persons (IDPs): Persons or groups of persons who have been forced to flee or to leave their homes or places of habitual residence, in particular as a result of or in order to avoid the effects of armed conflict, situations of generalized violence, violations of human rights or natural or human-made disasters, and who have not crossed an internationally recognized State border [Guiding principles on Internal Displacement, UN Doc E/CN.4/1998/53/Add.2.] [IOM, 2016].

IDP Returnee: Previously displaced people that were internally displaced before and have now returned to same location as before their displacement (IOM, 2024).

Non-Displaced: Non-displaced persons living in the same community (location) as displaced persons, either sharing public infrastructure / services with displaced persons or hosting displaced person within their household (IOM, 2024).

Documentation

Metadata

Parameter variables

Response variables