Samoa - Samoa National Population and Housing Census 2006

Start	End	Cycle
2006-10-31	2006-11-14	5-yearly period

Face-to-face [f2f]

The field listing and mapping of all households in Samoa took place from July 2005 - April 2007. All listing and map editings were completed by September 2006.

The Questionnaire was designed from January-June 2006 and was pre- tested in July 2006 in the village of Levi, Saleimoa. The questionnaire was in English but all Samoan translations were in the Manual of Instructions.The main language used in the interviews was Samoan and English was used when needed especially residing expatriats and English-speaking Samoan families.

The Enumerators first trainings took place from September 4th - 2nd of October, 2006 and followed by the Supervisors training on the 13th of October, 2006.
The final training for all Supervisors and Enumerators in Upolu was held on the 23rd of October 2006, followed by the final training for Savaii island on the 25th of the same month. The final trainings included the distribution of all census questionrnaires and materials to Supervisors and Enumerators.

Samoa has a total of 48 pollitical districts of which a total of 35 Supervisors were allocated to one or two districts to supervise. Likewise a total of 1,250 enumerators were allocated to 848 enumeration areas (EA). Given that some EA were bigger than others, two to four enumerators worked in one EA with a maximum of 30 households per enumerator. An average of 3 households can be interviewed by the teachers in the afternoons after their school working hours.

The SBS Census-Survey division was fully responsible for the overall coordination of the field supervision and enumeration. The staffs mainly assisted the hired Supervisors in checking the quality of the Enumerators work due to the large number of enumerators under their supervision. The staffs also carried out spot checks on the field to monitor the coverage of enumeration.

The PHC 2006 questionnaire was developed on the basis of the PHC 2001 with some modifications and additions. The Questionnaire has separate A-3 page for the Population questionnaire and a separate A4 page for the Housing questionnaire.

A Population questionnaire was administered in each household, which collected various information on household members including age, sex, citizenship, ethnicity, orphanhood, marital status, matai status, disability, language of communication, residence (birth, usual, previous), religion, education and employment.

In the Population questionnaire, a special section was administered in each household for women age 15-49, which also asked information on their children ever born still living, died or living somewhere else. Mothers of children under one year were also asked whether they have immunized their babies for measles and rubella.

The Housing questionnaire was also administered in each household which collected information on the types of building the household lived, floor materials, wall materials, roof materials, land tenure, house tenure, water supply, drinking water, lighting, cooking fuel, waste disposal, toilet facility, telephone, computer, internet, cell phones, homezone phone, refrigerator, radio, television, play-station or kidz video games, vehicle, and also the household three main sources of income.

In the Housing questionnaire, a special section was designed to capture household deaths and maternal deaths between November 2004-2006 including the deceased's sex, age at death, and ,the main cause of death.

Name	Abbreviation	Affiliation
School inspectors and school teachers	MESC	Ministry of Education, Sports and Culture
SBS full-time staffs	SBS	SBS
SBS part-time employees	SBS	SBS

Interviewing was conducted by teams of enumerators. Each interviewing team comprised of field editors from the SBS main office and a supervisor, and a driver. Each supervisor used a 4 wheel drive pick-up or van to travel from village to village and where necessary within his allocated district.

The role of the supervisor was to coordinate field data collection activities in their allocated areas, checked the enumerators work, solved refusal problems when arised, and also prepared a summary statistical report of all household members in each household that have been enumerated by the enumerators. These summary reports helped SBS to prepare the Preliminary count of the Population which is normally released within a month after the actual enumeration period or before the normal data processing started.

SBS managed and distributed all supplies and equipment, finances, maps and listings, and also coordinated arrangements for accommodation and travel. Additionally, the SBS field editors worked with the supervisors in checking the enumerators work during and after the enumeration, and then collected and took the completed questionnaires to SBS main office and prepared progress reports on the enumeration coverage.

The overall coordination of Supervision is lead by the Assistant Chief Executive Officer(ACEO) of Census-Surveys and her staffs with the executive support given by the Government Statistician/CEO.