Constrained Estimation of Cell-Only Households by Block Group Using Iterative Calibration

• Activity Number: 639
• Type: Contributed
• Date/Time: Thursday, August 5, 2010 : 8:30 AM to 10:20 AM
• Sponsor: Section on Survey Research Methods
• Author(s): Mansour Fahimi*+ and Paul Rappoport and Kevin Babyak and David Malarek
• Companies: Marketing Systems Group and Centris and Centris and Marketing Systems Group
• Keywords: Cell-only households ; Landline-only households ; Mixed-line households

Abstract

Undoubtedly, a growing number of households are foregoing landline services and relying entirely on wireless devices for their telecommunication needs. Currently, results from the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) are used to estimate the number of so-called cell-only households. However, the NHIS-based estimates are available only at the national level, with state-level estimates that are at least two years in lag. This creates challenges for survey research designs that employ random digit dial (RDD) sampling methodology, since RDD designs require reliable estimates for the number of households reachable via landline and cellular phones. More importantly, such estimates are needed at various levels of geography for surveys with geographic domains below the nation. A proposed solution to these problems is to combine survey results with reported data from industry. This hybri