Household consumption and expenditure surveys (HCES) are a valuable resource for shaping national agriculture and nutrition policies. For example, food consumption data reported in HCES can be integrated with food composition information to estimate dietary energy and nutrient availabilities and assess deficiency risks. The Micronutrient Action Policy Support (MAPS) project has developed methods to utilize HCES data for insights into dietary nutrient supplies and intervention modelling, including the effectiveness and equitability of large-scale food fortification programs.
To streamline the analytical process of HCES data, MAPS introduces "R for Household Consumption and Expenditure Surveys", which offers comprehensive tools for analysing HCES data using the open-source R statistical package.
Who is this manual for?
The "R for Household Consumption and Expenditure Surveys" manual is designed to help you better understand your HCES data and work more effectively on your projects. You will learn how to install and set up R and RStudio on your computer, perform data processing and analysis, create visualizations, and use the special R package for HCES data analysis (hcesNutR package). Additionally, you will learn how to integrate food composition tables with HCES data. The manual offers step-by-step instructions, examples, and practice exercises to help you master HCES analysis.
The guide covers the following topics:
- Understanding the HCES dataset (data types, structures, wrangling)
- R packages and functions for HCES data analysis and visualization
- Introducing the hcesNutR package for HCES data analysis
- Introduction to Food Composition Tables & Databases
This manual will equip you with the skills and knowledge to utilize R and RStudio for HCES analysis, promoting a deeper understanding and enhancing nutrition analysis with HCES datasets in your projects. It has been added to our SCANR repository, where you can find other tools to support your research.
