Types of Membership

INDEPTH has two types of membership: full and associate members.

A FULL MEMBER is a RESEARCH CENTRE that runs a health and demographic surveillance system (HDSS) field site. The member:

• Must operate an HDSS – at the minimum must have had at least one follow-up round per year following an initial census.
• Must collect data on the core components of demography and health – births, deaths, migrations and must include monitory of pregnancies and their outcomes.
• Must implement Verbal Autopsies (VAs) on deaths.
• Must provide minimum datasets annually to INDEPTH Secretariat (that include the individual-level data listed in point 2), that are of sufficient quality to be included in INDEPTHStats.  The lag time for is for a minimum of 3 years.
• Must be prepared to contribute data to cross-site research.
• Does not need financial support from the Network for HDSS operations.
• Must be prepared to fund leader's participation at Annual General Meetings (AGMs).
• Must complete member centre questionnaire annually.
• Encouraged to acknowledge INDEPTH membership in publications. However, for INDEPTH-supported projects acknowledgement of  INDEPTH is mandatory.

ASSOCIATE MEMBER: Interested research institutions who do not meet the criteria for full memberships are eligible to participate as associate members. They may participate in INDEPTH meetings, conferences, etc., at their own cost.

A full member centre may run more than one HDSS field site.

Projects running some form of an HDSS that do not currently meet the criteria for full membership are encouraged to join the Network as associate members.