Rwanda - Rwanda Demographic and Health Survey 2025

A.1 Introduction
The 2025 Rwanda Demographic and Health Survey (2025 RDHS) follows those implemented in 1992, 2000,
2005, 2010, 2014–15, and 2019–20. A nationally representative sample of 560 clusters and 14,560 households
was selected. All women aged 15–49 years who were usual residents of the selected households or who slept in
the households the night before the survey were eligible for the survey. The survey was expected to result in
about 16,352 interviews of women aged 15–49 years. As with the prior surveys, the main objectives of the 2025
RDHS survey were to provide up-to-date information on fertility and childhood mortality levels; fertility preferences;
awareness, approval, and use of family planning methods; maternal and child health; knowledge of and
attitudes toward HIV and AIDS and other sexually transmitted infections (STIs); and the prevalence of HIV among
the adult population.
Apart from the female survey, a male survey was conducted at the same time in a subsample consisting of one
household in every two selected for the female survey. All men aged 15–59 years who were usual residents of
the selected households or who slept in the households the night before the survey were eligible for the male
survey. The survey collected information on their basic demographic and social status, on their knowledge and
use of family planning methods, and on their knowledge of and attitudes toward HIV and AIDS and other sexually
transmitted infections. The survey was expected to result in about 7,237 interviews of men aged 15–59 years.
In all selected households, children under age 5 were eligible to be measured for height and weight.

In the subsample of households selected for the men’s survey, women aged 15–49 years and men aged 15–59 years were
eligible for height and weight measurements and HIV testing. In the same subsample, women aged 15–49 years
and children aged 6–59 months were eligible for anemia testing. The domestic violence module for men was
implemented in households selected for the male interview, and the domestic violence module for women was
implemented in the remaining 50% of households that were not selected for the male interview.
The survey was designed to produce representative estimates for the main demographic and health indictors
for the country as a whole, for urban and rural areas separately, and for each of the five provinces. For some
indicators, representative results may be available for each of the 30 districts.

A.2 Sampling Frame

The sampling frame used for the 2025 RDHS is the 2022 Rwanda Population and Housing Census (2022 RPHC)
frame. The sampling frame is a complete list of enumeration areas (EAs) covering the whole country provided by
the National Institute of Statistics of Rwanda (NISR), the implementing agency for the 2025 RDHS. An EA is a
natural village, or a part of a village, created for the 2022 RPHC that served as a counting unit for the census.
Each EA includes identification information, administrative information, and a measure of size,
which is the number ofresidential households within the EA. Each EA is also classified into one of the two types of residence: urban
and rural. In addition, each EA has accompanying cartographic materials that delineate its geographic location,
boundaries, main access, and landmarks,which helps to identify the EA. TableA.1shows thedistributionofhouseholds by province, district, and type of residence.
The table also shows the percentage of households that are urban in
each province and district, and the percentage distribution of households by province and district. The percentage share
of households by province varies from 15% in the City of Kigali to 27% in the Eastern Province. In Rwanda, 28% of
households arein urban areas. The percentage of households in urban areas is highest in the City of Kigali (87%) and
lowestin the Southern Province (15%).

A.3 Sample Design and Implementation

The sampling procedure used for the 2025 RDHS was two-stage stratified sampling. Stratification was achieved
by separating each of the 30 districts into urban and rural areas, forming two sampling strata per district. In total,
60 sampling strata were created. Samples were selected independently in each sampling stratum via a two-stage
selection process. In the first stage, 560 EAs were selected from the census frame using a probability proportional
to size sampling procedure according to the sample allocation given in Table A.3. Before the selection,
the sampling frame was sorted by province, district, and lower-level administrative units within each sampling
stratum. This resulted in an implicit stratification with proportional allocation at lower-level administrative units
using a probability proportional to size selection procedure.

After the first-stage selection and before the main survey, a household listing operation was carried out in all
selected EAs. The household listing operation consisted of (1) visiting each of the 560 selected EAs to draw a
location map and a detailed sketch map and (2) recording on the household listing forms all residential households
found in the EA with the address and the name of the head of the household.
The resulting list of households served as the sampling frame in the second stage for the selection of households.
During the second stage, a fixed number of 26 households were selected from the newly established household
listing from each cluster. Household selection was performed in the central office prior to the survey. The survey
interviewers were asked to conduct interviews only in the preselected households. No replacements and no
changes of the preselected households were allowed in the implementation stage to prevent bias.

The sample calculations for the 2025 RDHS were based on the results of the 2019–20 RDHS:
the average number of women aged 15–49 years per household was 1.23 in urban areas and 1.10 in rural areas, the average
number of men aged 15–59 years per household was 1.06 in urban areas and 0.99 in rural areas, the household
response rate was 99%, the individual women’s response rate was 99%, and the individual men’s response rate
was also 99%.


Because of the nonproportional allocation of the sample to the different reporting domains, sampling weights
are required for any analysis using the 2025 RDHS data to ensure the actual representativeness of the results.
Since the 2025 RDHS sample was a two-stage stratified cluster sample, sampling weights were calculated based
on sampling probabilities at each sampling phase and stage for each cluster.