Effectiveness of Address-based Sampling Frame Alternative to RDD: BRFSS Mail Survey Experiment Results

• Activity Number: 365
• Type: Contributed
• Date/Time: Wednesday, August 10, 2005 : 8:30 AM to 10:20 AM
• Sponsor: Section on Survey Research Methods
• Author(s): Michael W. Link*+ and Michael Battaglia and Martin R. Frankel and Pamela Giambo and Ali H. Mokdad
• Companies: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Abt Associates, Inc. and Abt Associates, Inc. and Abt Associates, Inc. and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
• Keywords: Random Digit Dialing (RDD) ; telephone surveys ; mail surveys ; sampling frames ; health surveys ; health surveillance

Abstract

Declining response rates and increasing threats to the validity of random digit dialed (RDD) sampling frames caused by cell phone-only households and telephone number portability are leading researchers to explore the effectiveness of other means of collecting survey data from the general public. As part of this trend, a six-state pilot study was conducted in conjunction with the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS), typically an RDD telephone survey, in which mail surveys were conducted with households sampled from two databases of residential addresses. The sampling frames were provided by different vendors, but both were based on the U.S. Post Office's Delivery Sequence File containing all addresses serviced by the Postal Service. The analysis compares the national estimates from the 2003 National Health Interview Survey and the mail survey estimates for 10 health and risk behavior indicators (including diabetes, obesity, binge drinking, and HIV testing) across the two sampled groups as well as with the telephone-based BRFSS conducted in the same six states. The findings help assess whether address-based frames are a viable alternative to RDD sampling frames.