Record Linkage of NCHS Surveys with SSA Administrative Data: A Demonstration of New Record-Matching Methodology That Utilizes Partial SSN in the Enumeration Verification System

• Activity Number: 617
• Type: Topic Contributed
• Date/Time: Thursday, August 5, 2010 : 8:30 AM to 10:20 AM
• Sponsor: Section on Government Statistics
• Author(s): Bert Kestenbaum and Kimberly Lochner*+ and Christine S. Cox
• Companies: Social Security Administration and National Center for Health Statistics and National Center for Health Statistics
• Keywords: record linkage ; health surveys ; administrative records

Abstract

Linking NCHS surveys to other administrative records uses Social Security Number (SSN) as a key identifier in the matching process. Yet, NCHS and other federal statistical systems have begun to collect partial SSN rather than full SSN, requiring the evaluation of new matching procedures. We evaluate partial SSN in record linkage with the Social Security Administration (SSA) Enumeration Verification System (EVS). The standard matching process uses the EVS to verify the full SSN information collected from NCHS survey participants and then to search for SSN when no SSN information was collected. With partial SSN, EVS cannot verify a SSN, but searching for SSN can be enhanced by using the partial SSN information. This presentation will describe the re-engineered EVS searching methodology that uses partial SSN and compare the results from the new methodology with the standard EVS results.