The ABS Frame: Quality and Considerations

Abstract

Address based sampling (ABS) is increasingly being used in the current survey environment of declining response rates and coverage concerns associated with landline random digit dial surveys. The goals of this research are to determine the implications of using ABS frame variables for data collection, to evaluate data quality of demographic variables provided on ABS frames, and to examine the possibility of using ABS frame variables to guide survey design. The implications of using ABS on data collection will be evaluated by examining the quality of frame data and by comparing these data to information reported by respondents. The ability to use ABS frame information for stratification and to guide operations will also be considered in light of the findings of these evaluations.