National Panel Survey 2015-2016

The UNPS is carried out over a twelve-month period (a "wave") on a nationally representative sample of households, for the purpose of accommodating the seasonality associated with the composition of and expenditures on consumption. The survey is conducted in two visits in order to better capture agricultural outcomes associated with the two cropping seasons of the country. The UNPS therefore interviews each household twice in a year, in visits approximately six months apart. In 2009/10, the UNPS set out to track and interview 3,123 households that were distributed over 322 Enumeration Areas (EAs), selected out of 783 EAs that had been visited during the Uganda National Household Survey (UNHS) in 2005/06.

The distribution of the EAs covered by the 2009/10 UNPS was such that it included all 34 EAs in Kampala District, and 72 EAs (58 rural and 14 urban) in each of the other regions i.e. Central excluding Kampala, Eastern, Western and Northern which make up the strata. Within each stratum, the EAs were selected with equal probability with implicit stratification by urban/rural and district (in this order). However, the probabilities of selection for the rural portions of ten districts that had been oversampled by the UNHS 2005/06 were adjusted accordingly. Since most IDP (Internally Displaced People) camps in the Northern region are currently unoccupied, the EAs that constituted IDP camps were not part of the UNPS sample. This allocation allows for reliable estimates at the national, rural-urban and regional levels i.e. at level of strata representativeness which includes:
(i) Kampala City
(ii) Other Urban Areas
(iii) Central Rural
(iv) Eastern Rural
(v) Western Rural
(vi) Northern Rural.

In the UNPS 2010/11, the concept of Clusters instead of EAs was introduced. A cluster represents a group of households that are within a particular geographical area up to parish level. This was done due to split-off households that fell outside the selected EAs but could still be reached and interviewed if they still resided within the same parish as the selected EA. Consequently, in each subsequent survey wave, a subset of individuals was selected for tracking. The UNPS is part of the long term Census and Household Survey Program hence questionnaires and the timing of data collection are coordinated with the current surveys and census implemented by UBOS.

SAMPLE REFRESH

Starting with the UNPS 2013/14 (Wave 4) fieldwork, one third of the initial UNPS sample was refreshed with the intention to balance the advantages and shortcomings of panel surveys. Each new household will be visited for three consecutive waves, while baseline households will have a longer history of five or six years, given the start time of the sample refresh. This same sample was used for the UNPS 2015/16 (Wave 5) Once a steady state is reached, each household will be visited for three consecutive years, and at any given time one third of the households will be new, one third will be visited for the second time, and one third for the third (and last) time. The total sample will never be too different from a representative cross-section of the country, yet two-thirds of it will be a panel with a background of a year or two. New households were identified using the updated sample frames developed by the UBOS in 2013 as part of the preparations for the 2014 Uganda Population and Housing Census.