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This article reports results from a student survey fielded using an experimental design with 14 Kentucky school districts. Seven of the 14 districts were randomly assigned to implement the survey with active consent procedures; the other seven districts implemented the survey with passive consent procedures. We used our experimental design to investigate the impact of consent procedures on (a) participation rates, (b) demographic characteristic of the survey samples, and (c) estimates of alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs (ATOD) use. We found that the use of active consent procedures resulted in reduced response rates, underrepresentation of male students and older students, and lower lifetime and past 30-day prevalence rates for most drugs and for most antisocial behaviors. Methodological implications of these findings are discussed along with directions for further research. (Contains 4 tables and 1 note.)

This research responds to the call for more research on the conceptualization and measurement of socio-economic status that moves beyond merely considering education, occupation and income variables. Credit card usage and credit card debt is a growing phenomenon in developed countries. Using data from a 1997 representative sample of more than 900 adults in Ohio, we explored how credit card debt and stress regarding debt is associated with health. We found that both credit card debt and stress regarding debt are associated with health. In addition, health behaviors and risks explain part of this association. Keywords: Debt; Credit; Socio-economic status; Race; Health

Monetary incentives are frequently used to improve survey response rates. While it is common to use a single incentive amount for an entire sample, allowing the incentive to vary inversely with the expected probability of response may help to mitigate nonresponse and/or nonresponse bias. Using data from the 2016 National Household Education Survey (NHES:2016), an address-based sample (ABS) of US households, this article evaluates an experiment in which the noncontingent incentive amount was determined by a household's predicted response propensity (RP). Households with the lowest RP received $10, those with the highest received $2 or $0, and those in between received the standard NHES incentive of $5. Relative to a uniform $5 protocol, this "tailored" incentive protocol slightly reduced the response rate and had no impact on observable nonresponse bias. These results serve as an important caution to researchers considering the targeting of incentives or other interventions based on predicted RP. While preferable in theory to "one-size-fits-all" approaches, such differential designs may not improve recruitment outcomes without a dramatic increase in the resources devoted to low RP cases. If budget and/or ethical concerns limit the resources that can be devoted to such cases, RP-based targeting could have little practical benefit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Twenty audiotapes, containing lies or true statements, were recorded and judged by 100 subject-listeners, aged 15-30. As a group, subjects displayed better-than-chance accuracy in judging veracity, which confirms previous studies. A tentative profile is drawn of an individual adept at detecting lies. (SJL)

There has been considerable research in the past three decades about the value of sending an advance letter to respondents prior to making the formal request for cooperation in a survey. This literature has shown that advance letters have a positive effect on survey response rates, but the literature has almost entirely focused on what is enclosed inside the envelope. In contrast, little attention has been given to the importance of the envelope/mailer that is used. However, whatever is enclosed inside the envelope can have no impact on the recipient unless the envelope is opened. We report on a large national experiment that tested the effects of two aspects of the advance envelope of a survey that sampled telephone numbers and gathered data via telephone: (1) envelope color and (2) the first line of the addressee. Our study was conducted as part of the CDC's 2014 National Immunization Survey (NIS). In the landline RDD sample, all the advance letters were randomly assigned to one of nine conditions using a 3 × 3 factorial design. This experiment tested the effects on the telephone survey response of whether the envelope was white, tan, or light blue and whether the envelope was addressed to the name of the person matched to the address, to "Resident," or to "Parent/ Guardian." It was found that a tan envelope addressed to "Parent/ Guardian" had a highly significant impact, achieving an approximately 35% higher eligibility rate compared to the control condition (white envelope addressed with the name that was matched to the address). Making envelope features more responsive to the potential participants did not raise the cost of the mailings, but it did have meaningful costbeneficial effects for the NIS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]