Cellular RDD Sampling Enhancements for the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System

• Activity Number: 171
• Type: Topic Contributed
• Date/Time: Monday, August 5, 2013 : 10:30 AM to 12:20 PM
• Sponsor: Government Statistics Section
• Author(s): G. Machell Town *+ and Ashley Hyon and Denise Bradford and Carol Pierannunzi and Carol Gotway Crawford
• Companies: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Marketing Systems Group and Centers for Disease Control and Northrop Grumman and Centers for Disease Control & Prevention and Centers for Disease Control & Prevention
• Keywords: cellular sampling ; geographic stratification ; population health surveys ; survey research

Abstract

Targeting cellular respondents in specific areas is a difficult process. Unlike landline RDD samples, cellular numbers are not tied to geographic areas and may reach individuals outside of designated sample areas. Marketing Systems Group has developed a methodology for constructing cellular sampling frames using rate centers. A rate center delineates the local call boundaries set by service providers for billing purposes. As such, subsets of 1000-series blocks of cellular numbers assigned to specific wireless service providers can be mapped to geographic areas of interest for targeting purposes. The goal of this research is to determine the degree to which rate centers can accurately identify eligible respondents in BRFSS geographically defined areas. For this purpose, the frame locations for cellular RDD samples from a number of counties are compared to those verified by respondents as part of the BRFSS survey administration. Results suggest that geographic targeting of cellular respondents in more populated areas is more precise, and that the size of the area of interest can affect the reliability of targeting as well.