International Programs

The Census and Survey Processing System (CSPro) is a public domain software package used by hundreds of organizations and tens of thousands of individuals for entering, editing, tabulating, and disseminating census and survey data. CSPro is designed to be as user-friendly as possible, yet powerful enough to handle the most complex applications. It can be used by a wide range of people, from non-technical staff assistants to senior demographers and programmers.

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Intermediate Workshop for CSPro (Census and Survey Processing System)
Two Week Workshop: May 20 – May 31, 2013 U.S. Census Bureau, Washington, DC
Download announcement for more information. [PDF - 400K]

Features

CSPro is used primarily for data entry, editing, tabulation, and dissemination. While some organizations use CSPro in conjunction with other statistical packages, CSPro can also be used as the sole program for processing census or survey data. For example, an organization can collect data using tablet computers with CSPro software or use the data entry tool to key results from paper questionnaires. After data collection, an organization can edit and impute data in CSPro before preparing appropriate analytical tables with the tabulation tool. Finally, an organization can use CSPro to generate web-based and standalone data dissemination products.

While the program uses a simple graphical interface, CSPro also contains a sophisticated programming language that can be used to create highly customized applications. Beginning users can program simple quality control checks, and advanced users can write dynamic applications using the procedural language. CSPro contains rich documentation describing the language as well as all of CSPro’s features.

Widespread Use

CSPro is used in over 160 countries. Leading statistical agencies in the developing world use CSPro to process census data. Non-governmental organizations (NGOs), colleges and universities, hospitals, and private sector groups also use CSPro for survey work. CSPro can be used to process censuses and surveys of any size and has been used to process the census data for both Djibouti (less than one million people) and Indonesia (more than 235 million). Examples of uses of CSPro include:

• Censuses (population and housing; agriculture; and economic)
• Demographic and labor force surveys
• Household income and expenditure surveys
• Major international projects such as the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS), Living Standards Measurement Study (LSMS), and Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS)

History

CSPro is a software package designed for Microsoft Windows, combining the features of two previous DOS-based software packages, IMPS and ISSA. Unlike the previous text-based systems, CSPro provides a visual approach to the creation and manipulation of data and reduces the need for most users to have advanced programming skills. CSPro has great flexibility, however, and its functionality can be exploited by skilled users. CSPro has been actively used worldwide since 2000.

CSPro is developed and supported by the U.S. Census Bureau and ICF Macro  , the organization that implements the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS). Funding for the development and maintenance of CSPro is primarily provided by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The Census Bureau provides training and technical assistance on all aspects of processing to national statistical offices around the world with support from USAID and other donors.