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Linking Synthetic Populations to Household Geolocations: A Demonstration in Namibia

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  • Dana R. Thomson

    (Flowminder Foundation, SE-11355 Stockholm, Sweden
    WorldPop, Department of Geography and Environment, University of Southampton, Southampton SO17 1BJ, UK
    Department of Social Statistics, University of Southampton, Southampton SO17 1BJ, UK
    These authors contributed equally to this work.)

  • Lieke Kools

    (Department of Economics, Leiden University, 2311 EZ Leiden, The Netherlands
    These authors contributed equally to this work.)

  • Warren C. Jochem

    (Flowminder Foundation, SE-11355 Stockholm, Sweden
    WorldPop, Department of Geography and Environment, University of Southampton, Southampton SO17 1BJ, UK)

Abstract

Whether evaluating gridded population dataset estimates (e.g., WorldPop, LandScan) or household survey sample designs, a population census linked to residential locations are needed. Geolocated census microdata data, however, are almost never available and are thus best simulated. In this paper, we simulate a close-to-reality population of individuals nested in households geolocated to realistic building locations. Using the R simPop package and ArcGIS, multiple realizations of a geolocated synthetic population are derived from the Namibia 2011 census 20% microdata sample, Namibia census enumeration area boundaries, Namibia 2013 Demographic and Health Survey (DHS), and dozens of spatial covariates derived from publicly available datasets. Realistic household latitude-longitude coordinates are manually generated based on public satellite imagery. Simulated households are linked to latitude-longitude coordinates by identifying distinct household types with multivariate k-means analysis and modelling a probability surface for each household type using Random Forest machine learning methods. We simulate five realizations of a synthetic population in Namibia’s Oshikoto region, including demographic, socioeconomic, and outcome characteristics at the level of household, woman, and child. Comparison of variables in the synthetic population were made with 2011 census 20% sample and 2013 DHS data by primary sampling unit/enumeration area. We found that synthetic population variable distributions matched observed observations and followed expected spatial patterns. We outline a novel process to simulate a close-to-reality microdata census geolocated to realistic building locations in a low- or middle-income country setting to support spatial demographic research and survey methodological development while avoiding disclosure risk of individuals.

Suggested Citation

  • Dana R. Thomson & Lieke Kools & Warren C. Jochem, 2018. "Linking Synthetic Populations to Household Geolocations: A Demonstration in Namibia," Data, MDPI, vol. 3(3), pages 1-19, August.
  • Handle: RePEc:gam:jdataj:v:3:y:2018:i:3:p:30-:d:162841
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Andreas Alfons & Stefan Kraft & Matthias Templ & Peter Filzmoser, 2011. "Simulation of close-to-reality population data for household surveys with application to EU-SILC," Statistical Methods & Applications, Springer;Società Italiana di Statistica, vol. 20(3), pages 383-407, August.
    2. Günther Fink & Isabel Günther & Kenneth Hill, 2014. "Slum Residence and Child Health in Developing Countries," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 51(4), pages 1175-1197, August.
    3. Robert Tanton, 2014. "A Review of Spatial Microsimulation Methods," International Journal of Microsimulation, International Microsimulation Association, vol. 7(1), pages 4-25.
    4. Templ, Matthias & Meindl, Bernhard & Kowarik, Alexander & Dupriez, Olivier, 2017. "Simulation of Synthetic Complex Data: The R Package simPop," Journal of Statistical Software, Foundation for Open Access Statistics, vol. 79(i10).
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    1. Thomson, Dana R. & Stevens, Forrest R. & Chen, Robert & Yetman, Gregory & Sorichetta, Alessandro & Gaughan, Andrea E., 2022. "Improving the accuracy of gridded population estimates in cities and slums to monitor SDG 11: Evidence from a simulation study in Namibia," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 123(C).

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