Looking for a Needle in a Haystack: A Multi-Mode Approach to a Survey of Rare Subpopulations

• Activity Number: 420
• Type: Contributed
• Date/Time: Wednesday, August 5, 2009 : 8:30 AM to 10:20 AM
• Sponsor: Section on Survey Research Methods
• Author(s): Mansour Fahimi*+ and Barbara L. Kroner and Anne E. Kenyon and David J. Thurman
• Companies: Marketing Systems Group and RTI International and RTI International and CDC
• Keywords: Address-Based Sampling ; Multi-mode ; Incentives Efficacy

Abstract

It is estimated that less than 2% of the U.S. population has a history of epilepsy; however, existing prevalence estimates are not consistent and range from 0.4% to 1.1%. Moreover, there are no prevalence estimates for this disorder among minority subpopulations. The authors conducted a population-based survey to produce current prevalence estimates of epilepsy, overall and among African Americans and Hispanics. Because of the coverage problems associated with the RDD sampling methodology, an address-based sampling method was used to reduce undercoverage and facilitate application of a multi-mode method of data collection. Various findings from this research will be presented, including field results, demographic comparisons of respondents opting for different modes of response, efficacy of incentives in increasing response rates, and preliminary estimates of the outcome measures.