An Evaluation of Respondent Selection Methods for Household Mail Surveys

Mail surveys are a staple of the survey industry; however, they are rarely used in surveys of the general population. The problem is twofold: (1) lack of a complete sampling frame of households and (2) difficulties with ensuring random selection of a respondent within the household. However, advance...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Public opinion quarterly 2008-10, Vol.72 (3), p.459-469
Main Authors: Battaglia, Michael P., Link, Michael W., Frankel, Martin R., Osborn, Larry, Mokdad, Ali H.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult education
Adults
Age groups
Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System
Birthdays
Evaluation
Focus groups
Gender
History, theory and methodology
Households
Mail surveys
Mailings
Methodology
Methods
Opinion polls
Pilot projects
Polls & surveys
Population
Population estimates
Postal & delivery services
Postal services
Public opinion
Public opinion polls
Qualitative research
Quantitative analysis
Questionnaires
Random sampling
Research Methodology
Research Notes
Response rates
Sociology
Sociology of communication and mass media. Sociolinguistics
Sociology of knowledge and sociology of culture
Studies
Surveillance
Surveys
Telephones
U.S.A
United States of America
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Summary:Mail surveys are a staple of the survey industry; however, they are rarely used in surveys of the general population. The problem is twofold: (1) lack of a complete sampling frame of households and (2) difficulties with ensuring random selection of a respondent within the household. However, advances in electronic record keeping, such as the U.S. Postal Service Delivery Sequence File, now make it possible to sample from a frame of residential addresses. Unfortunately, less is known about the effectiveness of within-household selection techniques for household mail surveys. A six-state pilot study was conducted as part of the 2005 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System using the Delivery Sequence File to sample addresses for a mail survey. The pilot study tested three respondent selection methods: any adult, adult with the next birthday, and all adults. The next-birthday and all-adults methods yielded household-level response rates that were comparable to the any-adult method, the method assumed to have the least respondent burden. At the respondent level, however, the response rate for the all-adults method was lower when we accounted for within-household nonresponse.
ISSN:0033-362X
1537-5331
DOI:10.1093/poq/nfn026