Attitudes Towards the Use of Administrative Records

at Westat

In reaction to declining response rates, increased operational costs, and increased demands for data, the Federal Statistical System (FSS) is carefully examining the possibility of increased reliance on administrative records to supplement current survey data collections. In addition to legal, policy, data quality, and other matters, the FSS wanted to learn more about the public's potential reaction, what concerns exist about
administrative records usage, and how to best communicate such activities if this approach is expanded. An interagency team developed a series of questions that are asked at the end of an ongoing nightly telephone survey. The survey is being fielded from February 2012 to September 2013 and completes interviews with about 200 nationally representative respondents most nights. Respondents are asked a number of questions regarding their attitudes towards and knowledge about the FSS, as well as questions that gauge attitudes and knowledge of the potential use of administrative records data for statistical purposes. Building on past research in this area, through the nightly survey, we have examined various ways of measuring, and possibly informing, opinions towards the use of administrative records. This paper explores overall attitudes towards administrative records use and compares whether mentioning different social benefits (such as saving money or time), using different data sources (such as government, commercial, or health records), and different federal agencies requesting use of the record may produce different results. In addition, we show how respondents of different demographic groups and of different mindsets may have different attitudes towards the use of administrative records depending on how the use is framed. We also show how this line of research can be used to help frame the public discussion of the use of administrative records for statistical purposes.