How to (possibly) Ask for Parental Permission to Interview a Teenager: A Telephone Experiment in the California Health Interview Survey (CHIS)
Matt Jans
UCLA Center for Health Policy Research
Royce Park
UCLA Center for Health Policy Research
David Grant
UCLA Center for Health Policy Research
Sherman Edwards
Westat
John Rauch
Westat
An experiment was designed, which changed the way permission to interview teen respondents was requested in the California Health Interview (CHIS). It manipulated a) the verbatim consent script and b) instructions to tailor responses to parents' questions and concerns. The new permission script significantly increased the rate at which parents grant permission to interview the adolescent. Instructions to tailor response to parents' questions seemed to have no additional positive effect and may have negatively affected permission rates when combined with the new consent script. The overall effects seem to be driven by differences in Spanish interviews but not English interviews, suggesting that either translation or cultural expectations regarding parental requests for adolescent participation may influence parental consent rates. The findings contribute to our understanding of methods to include minors in population-based survey, and language differences in survey consent and participation.