Retention of Minority Populations in Panel Studies of Drug Use

Abstract

SUMMARY Sample retention is a potentially serious problem in panel studies of drug use that include minority respondents. Minority respondents may be more difficult to retain primarily because their disadvantaged economic status makes tracking and contacting them more difficult. It is suggested that with standard techniques of tracking applied aggressively, high retention rates can be obtained for these respondents. This paper describes strategies that are used in an ongoing panel study of drug use among primarily African American and Puerto Rican respondents and evaluates how effective these strategies have been. Over an eight year period involving ten waves of data collection, 86 percent of the initial 1000 adolescents have been retained. Among adolescents, there is little difference in attrition by racial/ethnic status. However, among the parents, Puerto Rican respondents have somewhat lower retention rates than white or African American respondents. Reasons for the attrition of the Puerto Rican parent...