Survey Weights in Public Use Files

• Activity Number: 304
• Type: Contributed
• Date/Time: Tuesday, August 3, 2010 : 8:30 AM to 10:20 AM
• Sponsor: Section on Government Statistics
• Author(s): Satkartar Kinney*+ and Alan Karr
• Companies: National Institute of Statistical Sciences and National Institute of Statistical Sciences
• Keywords: data confidentiality ; statistical disclosure limitation ; surveys ; weights

Abstract

Government agencies often provide data to the public via their websites or other means. Usually these data have been altered prior to release for confidentiality reasons using statistical disclosure limitation (SDL) methods to preserve to an extent the inferential properties of the data. While there is extensive literature in SDL little of it addresses what to do with survey weights. This paper describes risk and utility issues associated with releasing survey weights along with masked datasets. Potential solutions and research directions are posed.