We conducted a cross-sectional survey to determine healthcare utilization patterns for acute respiratory, diarrhea, neurologic and febrile illnesses: we report here only the results for acute respiratory infections. We used a stratified, two-stage cluster sampling procedure. Communities in the 2002 Guatemalan census were stratified as to whether or not they had a hospital or health center located in their community. As the first stage of sampling, 30 communities were selected within each stratum, using probability proportional to the population of each community, for a total of 60 clusters. Maps detailing household locations were obtained from the Guatemalan Census Bureau for these communities and 20 houses were randomly selected for a total of 1200 houses.