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238 – SPEED: Environment and Health, Governmental Policies, and Population Surveys, Part 1
Weighting Adjustments Can Help With Low Response Rates, but at What Cost to Data Quality?
Chrishelle Lawrence
U.S. Energy Information Administration
The Residential Energy Consumption Survey (RECS) was traditionally an in-person survey, but in its most recent survey cycle, in-person, web, and mail surveys were used for data collection. Planning is underway to consider a web/mail only data collection. Moving from an in-person interview to a web/mail survey for data collection poses many challenges, and one major concern is the expected decline in the response rate. To compensate for low response rates, nonresponse and post-stratification weighting adjustments are often used produce more accurate estimates. In doing this, survey weights become larger and more error is introduced into the estimates. Using results from a national pilot study that was conducted via web/mail, this research will consider the impact varying levels of total and subpopulation nonresponse have on data quality with respect to weights and estimates.