Complex sample design effects and inference for Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey data

Abstract

Nutritional researchers world-wide are using large-scale sample survey methods to study nutritional health epidemiology and services utilization in general, non-clinical populations. This article provides a review of important statistical methods and software that apply to descriptive and multivariate analysis of data collected in sample surveys, such as national health and nutrition examination survey. A comparative data analysis of the Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (KNHANES) was used to illustrate analytical procedures and design effects for survey estimates of population statistics, model parameters, and test statistics. This article focused on the following points, method of approach to analyze of the sample survey data, right software tools available to perform these analyses, and correct survey analysis methods important to interpretation of survey data. It addresses the question of approaches to analysis of complex sample survey data. The latest developments in software tools for analysis of complex sample survey data are covered, and empirical examples are presented that illustrate the impact of survey sample design effects on the parameter estimates, test statistics, and significance probabilities (p values) for univariate and multivariate analyses.