Abstract #300927

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JSM 2003 Abstract #300927
Activity Number: 113
Type: Topic Contributed
Date/Time: Monday, August 4, 2003 : 10:30 AM to 12:20 PM
Sponsor: Section on Survey Research Methods
Abstract - #300927
Title: How Many Digits in a Handshake? The Role of SSN in NDI Record Linkage
Author(s): Bryan Sayer*+ and Chris Cox
Companies: Social and Scientific Systems, Inc. and Center for Disease Control and Prevention
Address: 8757 Georgia Ave., Silver Spring, MD, 20910-3737,
Keywords: record linkage ; probabilistic matching ; nonresponse ; National Death Index
Abstract:

Refusal rates from respondents for Social Security numbers (SSN) in surveys have skyrocketed in recent years. However, SSN is a key variable for selecting and scoring record linkages in the National Death Index. It has been suggested that survey participants might not be as reluctant to disclose a portion of their SSN as they are to disclose all of it. We test the impact of having either the last six digits or the last four digits of the SSN on the scoring algorithm in the NDI. Using less than nine digits results in a larger number of possible matches being selected with a greater chance of generating a false positive score. Using a sample of 12,699 people with known vital status, we test a proposed new scoring algorithm to see if it can correctly differentiate between the true positives and the false positives using less than nine digits of the SSN. We compare the impact of scoring each digit separately versus an all-or-nothing approach based on total digits available.

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