Measurement of Perceived Health Status: Respondent and Mode Effects in a National Health Survey

• Activity Number: 149
• Type: Contributed
• Date/Time: Monday, August 4, 2008 : 10:30 AM to 12:20 PM
• Sponsor: Section on Survey Research Methods
• Author(s): Steven R. Machlin*+ and Karen Beauregard and William Yu
• Companies: Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality
• Keywords: health status ; proxy effect ; mode effect ; MEPS

Abstract

Health surveys often contain a questionnaire item on whether sample persons' general health is excellent, very good, good, fair, or poor. The Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS) includes this type of question at each of 5 separate interview rounds. The MEPS is conducted via CAPI and one adult responds for all members in the household. The MEPS also includes a self administered questionnaire (SAQ) which is completed by sample adults around the time of the 2nd and 4th household interviews; it includes the same health status question as in the CAPI. In this paper, we assess the extent that type of respondent (self versus other family member), questionnaire mode (in-person CAPI versus self-administered paper), and characteristics of the respondent and sample person affect responses to the perceived health status question.