Survey Redesign Research Articles

Joint perceptions of the risk and availability of Cannabis in the United States, 2002-2018

BackgroundPrior work suggests that perceived risk and perceived availability of cannabis independently affect cannabis use. However, perceived risk likely modifies the effect of perceived availability, and vice versa. This study explored trends in joint perceived risk and availability of cannabis from 2002 to 2018 and the relationship between combined perceptions and cannabis use, frequent use, and cannabis use disorder (CUD). MethodsNational Surveys on Drug Use and Health data (n = 949,285, ages 12+) were used to create combined categories of perceived risk of weekly cannabis use and perceived cannabis availability. Descriptive analyses compared joint perceived risk/availability trends (pre/post-2015 due to survey redesign) overall and stratified by age, gender, past-year cannabis use, frequent use, and CUD. Regression analysis estimated associations between perceived risk/availability and cannabis outcomes. ResultsFrom 2002 to 2018, the prevalence of perceiving cannabis as low-risk doubled while perceiving cannabis as available remained unchanged. The proportion of individuals perceiving cannabis as Low-risk/Available increased by 86% from 2002 to 2014 (16.8%–31.2%) and 19% from 2015 to 2018 (30.1%–35.8%) while High-risk/Available and High-risk/Unavailable proportions declined. Differing patterns were observed by age and gender. Compared with individuals perceiving cannabis as High-risk/Unavailable, people in all other perception categories had greater risk of all cannabis outcomes. Results were consistent with additive interaction between perceived risk and availability in their effects on cannabis use. ConclusionsTrends and associations with cannabis outcomes differ when considering perceived risk and availability independently versus jointly. Longitudinal studies and cannabis policy evaluations would advance understanding of links between cannabis perceptions and use.

Clinical prediction of extra-medical use of prescription pain relievers from a representative United States sample

Use of prescription opioids ‘beyond the bounds’ of medical guidance can lead to opioid dependence. Yet recent efforts to predict extra-medical use of prescription pain relievers (EMPPR) have relied on electronic medical or pharmacy records. Because peak incidence of EMPPR occurs during adolescence— a time of relative health— administrative data may be inadequate. In this study, with data from a United States (US) population sample, we develop and internally validate an EMPPR prediction model. We analyzed data from 234,593 individuals aged 12-to-17-years, as sampled by the US National Survey of Drug Use and Health, 2004–2018, an annual cross-sectional survey. We encoded 14 predictors with onset prior to EMPPR initiation, including age, sex, and facets of drug and psychiatric history. We ranked these predictors by clinical utility before sequentially adding each to a regularized logistic regression model. On held-out test data (n = 23,685), the model performs well with 14 predictors, with an area under the precision recall curve (AUPRC) is 0.155. The area under the receiver operator curve (AUC) is 0.819, exceeding a recent benchmark on this dataset. Results are robust to survey redesign that occurred in 2015, and are not moderated by past-year use of medical services. In conclusion, while selection of predictors is limited to those with known timing prior to initiation of EMPPR rather than any cross-sectional variable, this model discriminates well. Good classification occurs even with a small set of clinically available predictors— age, a history of depression and alcohol, cigarette, and cannabis use.

Investigating the Effects of the Household Budget Survey Redesign on Consumption and Inequality Estimates: the Italian Experience

Abstract In 2014, many innovations were introduced in the Italian Household Budget Survey (HBS) in response to changes in European recommendations and purchasing behaviours and to an increased demand for information in the context of social and economic research. New instruments and techniques have been introduced, together with more accurate methodologies, with the aim of improving the survey, by both reducing the bias and variance of survey estimates and supplying estimation for additional subpopulations and variables. Given the parallel conduction of the former and new HBS in 2013, it has been possible to evaluate the effects of the abovementioned changes on consumption expenditure and inequality estimates and to compare the sample representativeness of selected subpopulations in both surveys.

Survey mode effects and insurance coverage estimates in the redesigned Gallup well-being index.

To test whether a change from a telephone to mail and Internet survey in January 2018 affected the sample composition and uninsured estimates in the Gallup-Sharecare Well-Being Index. Gallup-Sharecare Well-Being Index (2013-2018). Regression discontinuity analysis identified changes after the survey redesign in the estimated U.S. uninsured rate (adults 18-64) and in the sample's demographic composition. After the survey redesign, the estimated uninsured rate fell 5.3 percentage points (P<0.001), respondents were older and disproportionately white, more likely to have a college degree, and had higher average incomes. These changes were modestly reduced by survey weights. The shift to a mail survey (with a web option) led to an older, more educated sample with fewer minorities, and a significant break in trend in the estimated uninsured rate.

Historic watermills digital survey and sustainable re-design in Cilento and Vallo di Diano National Park (Italy)

The present work is part of a multidisciplinary research carried out within the Benecon Competence Center Demonstration Project and related to Cilento and Vallo di Diano National Park area, one of the UNESCO World Heritage Sites and included in the Biosphere Reserve network. Cilento and Vallo di Diano landscape is an organic unit generated by the complex combination of physical and natural phenomena, firmly tied each other by mutually reciprocal relationships. The research for a dialogue between man and this heterogeneous set of elements, processes and interrelations has characterized the antrophized and natural heritage that has formed the landscape of these places characterized by great water wealth, dense slopes and lush Mediterranean vegetation. The Geographical Information System platform of the territory of Cilento and Vallo di Diano National Park synthesizes the integrated work of knowledge of the area and of all its forms of production either cultural or material, including through the actions of the peoples who have inhabited these sites. The GIS of Cilento and Vallo di Diano National Park has been developed to create a georeferred and dynamic database that would gather and integrate the cognitive activities carried out on the area through an innovative equipment. The GIS has been dynamically structured in thematic layers always implementable that at different scale contain the results and the elaborations of survey and data acquisition. Information, cataloged according to the ‘data warehouse’ methodology, has been structured to make easy the access by the user and to support decision-making. The layers, integrating the information with the aforementioned data, are organized, also in reference to the various scales and main time variations. In particular, the census of the territorial resources of the territory concerned the more than two hundred watermills surveyed within the perimeter of the National Park and subsequently surveyed through 3D digital laser sensors, cataloged on the basis of cadastral data and then inserted into the GIS platform on a georeferred map as a starting point for further documentation actions. The aforementioned analysis has been developed before a subsequent step of the research on technological and environmental issues. On some watermills have been developed a surveys to check the relationship between the water system, soil quality and its uses with to define a reference framework for the use of appropriate environmental technology for water cycle optimization systems. This study concerned the ‘Auso’ Valley water system, in the territory of Ottati, a municipality located in the north-eastern part of Cilento and Vallo di Diano National Park and has been structured in three phases. An initial phase of analysis took into account the hydraulic characteristics of the ‘Auso’ Valley, with particular reference to the nature of the water stream, the vegetation, geological and lithological conditions of the site, the hydrological and ecological environment. The second phase of the work concerned the check on the presence of hydraulic conditions suitable for the reactivation of the historic mills as examples of the hydro-mechanical technology used in the past. The last phase finally allowed an analysis on the quality characteristics of the waters of the ‘Auso’ Torrent. It has been possible to hypothesize the creation of a “filter system” with river phytodepuration techniques in order to safeguard the water course from induced pollution. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5755/j01.sace.20.3.19174

Bridging a Survey Redesign Using Multiple Imputation: An Application to the 2014 CPS ASEC

Abstract The Current Population Survey Annual Social and Economic Supplement (CPS ASEC) serves as the data source for official income, poverty, and inequality statistics in the United States. In 2014, the CPS ASEC questionnaire was redesigned to improve data quality and to reduce misreporting, item nonresponse, and errors resulting from respondent fatigue. The sample was split into two groups, with nearly 70% receiving the traditional instrument and 30% receiving the redesigned instrument. Due to the relatively small redesign sample, analyses of changes in income and poverty between this and future years may lack sufficient power, especially for subgroups. The traditional sample is treated as if the responses were missing for income sources targeted by the redesign, and multiple imputation is used to generate plausible responses. A flexible imputation technique is used to place individuals into strata along two dimensions: 1) their probability of income recipiency and 2) their expected income conditional on recipiency for each income source. By matching on these two dimensions, this approach combines the ideas of propensity score matching and predictive means matching. In this article, this approach is implemented, the matching models are evaluated using diagnostics, and the results are analyzed.

The development of the Monthly Business Survey

The Monthly Business Survey (MBS) brings together the Office for National Statistics' (ONS) short term surveys on different sectors of the economy. The Monthly Production Inquiry and the Monthly Inquiry into the Distribution and Services Sector have been integrated into one survey. Surveys of the construction sector remain separate but have been redesigned in a similar way to MBS. The Retail Sales Inquiry has also remained separate, but by re‐ branding as the MBS it paves the way for future integration. By standardising survey deigns and harmonising methodologies ONS hopes to achieve a number of benefits. This article reports on the development of the MBS to date ‐ including the scope of the survey and various aspects of the survey redesign.

Intervention analysis with state-space models to estimate discontinuities due to a survey redesign

An important quality aspect of official statistics produced by national statistical institutes is comparability over time. To maintain uninterrupted time series, surveys conducted by national statistical institutes are often kept unchanged as long as possible. To improve the quality or efficiency of a survey process, however, it remains inevitable to adjust methods or redesign this process from time to time. Adjustments in the survey process generally affect survey characteristics such as response bias and therefore have a systematic effect on the parameter estimates of a sample survey. Therefore, it is important that the effects of a survey redesign on the estimated series are explained and quantified. In this paper a structural time series model is applied to estimate discontinuities in series of the Dutch survey on social participation and environmental consciousness due to a redesign of the underlying survey process.

The impact of survey design modifications on health insurance coverage estimates in a National Longitudinal Health Care Survey

National health insurance coverage estimates for the overall population and specific population subgroups are critical to policymakers and others concerned with access to medical care and the cost and sources of payment for that care. The Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS) is one of the core health care surveys in the United States that serves as a primary source for these essential national health insurance coverage estimates. The survey is designed to provide annual national estimates of the health care use, medical expenditures, sources of payment and insurance coverage for the U.S. civilian non-institutionalized population. In 2007, the survey experienced two dominant survey design modifications: (1) a new sample design attributable to the sample redesign of the National Health Interview Survey, and (2) an upgrade to the CAPI platform for the survey instrument, moving from a DOS to a Windows based environment. This study examines the impact of these survey design modifications on the national estimates of insurance coverage. The overlapping panel design of the MEPS survey and its longitudinal features are particularly well suited to assess the impact of survey redesign modifications on estimates. Since two independent nationally representative samples are pooled to produce calendar year estimates, one has the capacity to compare estimates based on the “original survey design” in contrast to those derived from the “survey redesign.” This paper examines the correlates of nonresponse incorporated in the estimation techniques and adjustment methods employed in the survey, and the measures utilized for post-stratification overall and by panel. Particular attention is given to assessing the level of convergence in coverage estimates based on the alternative designs as well as the alignment of model based analyses that discern which factors are associated with health insurance classifications. The paper concludes with a discussion of strategies under consideration that may yield additional improvements in the accuracy for these critical policy relevant survey estimates.

The re-design of the Dutch CPI

Statistics Netherlands has decided to re-design the Consumer Price index (CPI). The aim is to improve its quality and bring the CPI more in line with a cost of living index. This article provides background information on the (total survey) re-design. It focuses on the bottle-necks in the methodology and the production process of the current Dutch CPI, and discusses the changes planned for 2007.

Childhood asthma prevalence: the impact of the 1997 National Health Interview Survey redesign

Childhood asthma prevalence: the impact of the 1997 National Health Interview Survey redesign

Childhood asthma prevalence: the impact of the 1997 National Health Interview Survey redesign

Childhood asthma prevalence: the impact of the 1997 National Health Interview Survey redesign

Multiple Value Expression in Contingent Valuation: Economics and Ethics

Contingent valuation method (CVM) surveys have become a popular way of placing a monetary value on various aspects of the environment with the aim of determining whether the benefits of a proposed project outweighs the costs. Litigation over natural resource damages has used CVM results as evidence of the size of compensation required. However, despite attempts to set down definitive rules, survey redesign and data manipulation fail to address some key issues raised by CVM studies. Among these is evidence that modified lexicographic preferences, where the substitutability of environmental quality with other commodities is rejected, can be common. Human value formation with respect to the environment combines ethical and economic aspects in a more complex way than most economists have assumed. This paper reports new evidence confirming the influence of ethical beliefs about rights for endangered species in determining willingness to pay (WTP) responses to a CVM survey. One subsample of those holding rights...

A Review: The National Crime Survey Redesign

NCS is a retrospective survey; like studies of voting behavior, spells of unemployment, and episodes of ill health, it poses a recall task and relies upon the accuracy with which respondents can describe their past experiences. The survey opens with a checklist designed to elicit reports of recent encounters with crime, and proceeds to a set of detailed questions for those who respond affirmatively. Most of the 18,000 or so NCS respondents each month have little to report, for recent victimization is relatively infrequent and geographically concentrated. Thus, using a national sample to ferret out these few requires that the survey be among the very largest conducted by the Census Bureau. Cost considerations and some technical features of measuring victimization also demand that the NCS be organized as a panel survey as well. Many of the methodological problems involved in fielding large retrospective panel surveys are confounded with the topical content of the NCS, for the distribution of criminal victimization turns out to be closely linked to many of the sources of sampling and nonsampling error which affect such surveys. Recognizing this, the launch of the NCS in 1972 was preceded by a series of six pilot studies that tested alternative questionnaire strategies, respondent selection procedures, and sampling designs for the survey (reports of the studies are reprinted in Lehnen and Skogan, 1981, 1985). This methodological scrutiny continues; almost immediately after the NCS went into the field it was reviewed by a panel convened by the National Research