Search

The U.S. Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) made a planned transition to a web-first mixed-mode data collection design in 2021 (web and computer-assisted telephone interviewing [CATI]), following nearly five decades of collecting data primarily using CATI with professional interviewers. To evaluate potential effects of mode on fieldwork outcomes, two sequential mixed-mode protocols were introduced using an experimental design. One protocol randomized sample families to a "web-first" treatment, which encouraged response through an online interview, followed by an offer of telephone to complete the interview; a second protocol randomized sample families to a "CATI-first" treatment until the last phase of fieldwork when the option to complete a web interview was offered. This paper examines the comparative effects of the two protocols on fieldwork outcomes, including response rates, interviewer contact attempts, fieldwork duration, and cost. Comparisons are also made with fieldwork outcomes and characteristics of non-responding sample members from the prior-wave when a traditional telephone design was used. We found that the web-first design compared to the CATI-first design led to comparably high response rates, and faster interview completion with lower effort and cost. With some notable exceptions, compared to the prior wave, the mixed-mode design reduced effort and had generally similar patterns of non-response among key respondent subgroups. The results provide new empirical evidence on the effects of mixing modes on fieldwork outcomes and costs and contribute to the small body of experimental evidence on the use of mixed-mode designs in household panel studies.

Adaptive survey designs are increasingly used by survey practitioners to counteract ongoing declines in household survey response rates and manage rising fieldwork costs. This paper reports findings from an evaluation of an early-bird incentive (EBI) experiment targeting high-effort respondents who participate in the 2019 wave of the US Panel Study of Income Dynamics. We identified a subgroup of high-effort respondents at risk of nonresponse based on their prior wave fieldwork effort and randomized them to a treatment offering an extra time-delimited monetary incentive for completing their interview within the first month of data collection (treatment group; N = 800) or the standard study incentive (control group; N = 400). In recent waves, we have found that the costs of the protracted fieldwork needed to complete interviews with high-effort cases in the form of interviewer contact attempts plus an increased incentive near the close of data collection are extremely high. By incentivizing early participation and reducing the number of interviewer contact attempts and fieldwork days to complete the interview, our goal was to manage both nonresponse and survey costs. We found that the EBI treatment increased response rates and reduced fieldwork effort and costs compared to a control group. We review several key findings and limitations, discuss their implications, and identify the next steps for future research.

We conducted an experiment to evaluate the effects on fieldwork outcomes and interview mode of switching to a web-first mixed-mode data collection design (self-administered web interview and interviewer-administered telephone interview) from a telephone-only design. We examine whether the mixed-mode option leads to better survey outcomes, based on response rates, fieldwork outcomes, interview quality, and costs. We also examine respondent characteristics associated with completing a web interview rather than a telephone interview. Our mode experiment study was conducted in the 2019 wave of the Transition into Adulthood Supplement (TAS) to the US Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID). TAS collects information biennially from approximately 3,000 young adults in PSID families. The shift to a mixed-mode design for TAS was aimed at reducing costs and increasing respondent cooperation. We found that for mixed-mode cases compared to telephone only cases, response rates were higher, interviews were completed faster and with lower effort, the quality of the interview data appeared better, and fieldwork costs were lower. A clear set of respondent characteristics reflecting demographic and socioeconomic characteristics, technology availability and use, time use, and psychological health were associated with completing a web interview rather than a telephone interview.

This paper describes the association between an incentive boost and data collection outcomes across two waves of a long-running panel study. In a recent wave, with the aim of achieving response rate goals, all remaining sample members were offered a substantial incentive increase in the final weeks of data collection, despite uncertainty about potential effects on fieldwork outcomes in the following wave. The analyses examine response rates and the average number of interviewer attempts to complete the interview in the waves during and after the incentive boost, and provide an estimate of the cost of the incentives and fieldwork in the waves during and following the boost. The findings provide suggestive evidence that the use of variable incentive strategies from one wave to the next in the context of an ongoing panel study may be an effective strategy to reduce nonresponse and may yield enduring positive effects on subsequent data collection outcomes.

Relatively low response rates in mixed mode studies remain a concern. Whether targeting protocols to match respondents' likely mode is an effective strategy remains unclear. For those without a clear likely mode, how the details about sequencing influence response rates, mode, field work effort, and potential response bias remain important questions. This article describes a targeted sequential design implemented in a 2016 mixed mode supplement with individuals ages 30 and older in the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, the longest running national panel study in the US (N=10,784). Respondents predicted to be likely to respond by web were invited to a web study and sent a paper copy after 6 weeks (web-first); those likely to respond by paper were also invited to participate by web but told that a paper copy would be sent shortly (signal-and-send). An embedded experiment measured the impact of the two protocols among a group of respondents with no clear likely mode (N=889). Over 40% of individuals with no likely mode are under the age of 40, and the group falls between the likely web and paper groups in terms of education and internet use and includes more women and single respondents. Compared to the likely web and paper groups, those with no likely mode had lower response rates and required more fieldwork effort. Among those randomly assigned, the signal-and-send protocol increased response over the web-first protocol from weeks 4 through 7. By week 16, both protocols yielded similar response rates (AAPOR 1 RR=71% vs. 68%, p=0.49), field effort (7.9 vs. 8.4 mean weeks, p=0.251), and distributions of respondent characteristics. Among those responding, cases randomized to web-first were more likely than those randomized to signal-and-send to respond by web (62.7% vs. 42.4% p<.001). We discuss implications for targeted protocols in mixed mode panel surveys.

We describe an experiment to provide a time-limited incentive among a random sample of 594 hard-to-reach respondents, 200 of whom were offered the incentive to complete all survey components of a study during a three-week winter holiday period. Sample members were primary caregivers of children included in the 2014 Child Development Supplement to the U.S. Panel Study of Income Dynamics. The incentive provided $50 to caregivers who completed a 75-minute telephone interview and whose eligible children each completed a 30-minute interview. Results indicate that the incentive was an effective and cost-efficient strategy to increase short-term response rates with hard-to-reach respondents with no negative impact on final response rates.

This article describes the results of an experiment designed to examine the impact of the use and amount of delayed unconditional incentives in a mixed mode (push to web) supplement on response rates, response mode, data quality, and sample bias. The supplement was administered to individuals who participate in the U.S. Panel Study of Income Dynamics, the longest running national household panel in the world. After 10 weeks of data collection, individuals who had not yet completed the interview were sent a final survey request and randomly assigned to one of three treatment conditions: no incentive, US$5, and US$10. The impact of the incentives on response rates and mode, effects on data quality, and sample bias are described. The implications for the use of incentives in mixed mode surveys and directions for future research are discussed., Competing Interests: Declaration of Conflicting Interests The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Recording interviews is a key feature of quality control protocols for most survey organizations. We examine the effects on interview length and data quality of a new protocol adopted by a national panel study. The protocol recorded a randomly chosen one-third of all interviews digitally, although all respondents were asked for permission to record their interview, and interviewers were blind to whether or not interviews were recorded. We find that the recording software slowed the interview slightly. Interviewer knowledge that the interview may be recorded improved data quality, but this knowledge also increased the length of the interview. Interviewers with higher education and performance ratings were less reactive to the new recording protocol. Survey managers may face a trade-off between higher data quality and longer interviews when determining recording protocols.

The Child Development Supplement (CDS) was started in 1997 to collect information on children and caregivers in families in the USA that participated in the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID), an ongoing national longitudinal household survey that began in 1968. CDS was launched with the goal of creating a comprehensive, nationally representative, prospective database of young children and their families for studying the dynamic process of children's health and development. The same children and their caregivers were interviewed in up to three waves approximately every 5 years (1997, 2002-03, and 2007-08), with a child-based response rate of 90% in the most recent wave. Upon reaching age 18 years and finishing or leaving high school, the children in the CDS cohort shifted to a six-wave follow-up study launched in 2005 called the PSID Transition into Adulthood (TA) study. The TA data have been collected biennially through 2013, with a final wave planned for 2015. Once these young adults form their own economically independent households, they join the PSID. The main categories of data emphasize the major developmental tasks of childhood and young adulthood, including influences on successful development in the domains of family, schools and neighbourhoods. The majority of data and documentation are freely and publicly available through the PSID Online Data Center., (© The Author 2014; all rights reserved. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the International Epidemiological Association.)

Since 1969, families participating in the U.S. Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) have been sent a mailing asking them to update or verify their contact information in order to keep track of their whereabouts between waves. Having updated contact information prior to data collection is associated with fewer call attempts, less tracking, and lower attrition. Based on these advantages, two experiments were designed to increase response rates to the between-wave contact mailing. The first experiment implemented a new protocol that increased the overall response rate by 7 - 10 percentage points compared to the protocol in place for decades on the PSID. This article provides results from the second experiment which examines the basic utility of the between-wave mailing, investigates how incentives affect article cooperation to the update request and field effort, and attempts to identify an optimal incentive amount. Recommendations for the use of contact update strategies in panel studies are made.

Nearly 23% of all telephone interviews in the most recently completed wave of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics break off at least once, requiring multiple sessions to complete the interview. Given this high rate, a study was undertaken to better understand the causes and consequences of temporary breakoffs in a computer-assisted telephone interview setting. The majority of studies examining breakoffs have been conducted in the context of self-administered web surveys. The present study uses new paradata collected on telephone interview breakoffs to describe their prevalence, associated field effort, the instrument sections and questions on which they occur, their source - whether respondent-initiated, interviewer-initiated, or related to telephone problems - and associations with respondent and interviewer characteristics. The results provide information about the survey response process and suggest a set of recommendations for instrument design and interviewer training, as well as additional paradata that should be collected to provide more insight into the breakoff phenomenon.

Spanning over four decades, the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) is the world's longest running household panel survey. The resulting data archive presents research opportunities for breakthroughs in understanding the connections between economic status, health and well-being across generations and over the life course. The long panel, genealogical design, and broad content of the data represent a unique opportunity for a multi-perspective study of life course evolution and change within families over multiple generations. Based on relational data structures and advanced web-based archiving and delivery tools, the PSID has a publicly available web-based facility for users worldwide to create customized data extracts and codebooks based on nearly 70,000 variables from over 70,000 individuals over 44 years. This paper provides an overview of the PSID and its supplemental studies, the Disability and Use of Time Supplement, the Child Development Supplement, and the Transition into Adulthood study, and describes features and recent enhancements that have increased the potential of the archive for studying life course development.

Examination of intergenerational asthma beyond maternal asthma has been limited. The association between childhood asthma and intergenerational asthma status among a national cohort of children was examined. The genealogical sample (2552 children) participating in the Child Development Supplement of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics was studied. Multivariate regression was used to determine intergenerational asthma. Children with a parent with asthma were almost twice as likely (odds ratio [OR] = 1.96) to have asthma compared with those without a parent with asthma. Children with a parent and grandparent with asthma were more than 4 times more likely to have asthma compared with those without a parent and grandparent with asthma (OR = 4.27). Children with a grandparent with asthma were more likely to have asthma (OR = 1.52). A family history of asthma was a significant predictor of physician diagnosed asthma in children regardless of race/ethnicity and socioeconomic status. Findings support the collection of family history, including grandparent asthma status.

General population data are presented on the prevalence and correlates of comorbidity between DSM-III-R major depressive disorder (MDD) and other DSM-III-R disorders. The data come from the US National Comorbidity Survey, a large general population survey of persons aged 15-54 years in the non-institutionalised civilian population. Diagnoses are based on a modified version of the Composite International Diagnostic Interview (CIDI). The analysis shows that most cases of lifetime MDD are secondary. In the sense that they occur in people with a prior history of another DSM-III-R disorder. Anxiety disorders are the most common primary disorders. The time-lagged effects of most primary disorders on the risk of subsequent MDD continue for many years without change in magnitude. Secondary MDD is, in general, more persistent and severe than pure or primary MDD. This has special public health significance because lifetime prevalence of secondary MDD has increased in recent cohorts, while the prevalence of pure and primary depression has remained unchanged.

Background: Data are presented on the general population prevalences, correlates, comorbidities, and impairments associated with DSM-III-R phobias., Methods: Analysis is based on the National Comorbidity Survey. Phobias were assessed with a revised version of the Composite International Diagnostic Interview., Results: Lifetime (and 30-day) prevalence estimates are 6.7% (and 2.3%) for agoraphobia, 11.3% (and 5.5%) for simple phobia, and 13.3% (and 4.5%) for social phobia. Increasing lifetime prevalences are found in recent cohorts. Earlier median ages at illness onset are found for simple (15 years of age) and social (16 years of age) phobias than for agoraphobia (29 years of age). Phobias are highly comorbid. Most comorbid simple and social phobias are temporally primary, while most comorbid agoraphobia is temporally secondary. Comorbid phobias are generally more severe than pure phobias. Despite evidence of role impairment in phobia, only a minority of individuals with phobia ever seek professional treatment., Conclusions: Phobias are common, increasingly prevalent, often associated with serious role impairment, and usually go untreated. Focused research is needed to investigate barriers to help seeking.

General population data from the National Comorbidity Survey are presented on co-occurring DSM-III-R addictive and mental disorders. Co-occurrence is highly prevalent in the general population and usually due to the association of a primary mental disorder with a secondary addictive disorder. It is associated with a significantly increased probability of treatment, although the finding that fewer than half of cases with 12-month co-occurrence received any treatment in the year prior to interview suggests the need for greater outreach efforts.

Objective: Major depression is a frequent and disabling psychiatric disorder in the United States. This report examines the prevalence and risk factor profile of both pure and comorbid major depression according to data from the National Comorbidity Survey., Method: To estimate the prevalence of psychiatric comorbidity in the United States, a national sample of 8,098 persons 15-54 years of age from the 48 conterminous states was surveyed with a modified version of the Composite International Diagnostic Interview., Results: From the survey data the prevalence of current (30-day) major depression was estimated to be 4.9%, with a relatively higher prevalence in females, young adults, and persons with less than a college education. The prevalence estimate for lifetime major depression was 17.1%, with a similar demographic distribution. Both 30-day and lifetime prevalence estimates were higher than estimates from the earlier Epidemiologic Catchment Area study. When pure major depression was compared with major depression co-occurring with other psychiatric disorders, the risk factor profiles exhibited clear differences., Conclusions: These findings suggest a greater burden of major depression in community-dwelling persons than has been estimated from previous community samples. The risk factor profile showed significant differences between persons with pure and combined major depression.

Data from a nationally representative sample of the general population are used to study cohort differences in the prevalence of DSM-III-R Major Depressive Episode (MDE). We document increasing lifetime prevalence of MDE among both men and women in more recent cohorts, but no major change in the sex ratio over the 40-year period retrospectively covered in the survey. We find a cohort difference in 12-month MDE, with older women much more likely than older men to have recurrent episodes. This sex difference in recurrence plays an important part in the elevated 12-month prevalence of depression among women compared to men in the 45-54 age range.

Background: This study presents estimates of lifetime and 12-month prevalence of 14 DSM-III-R psychiatric disorders from the National Comorbidity Survey, the first survey to administer a structured psychiatric interview to a national probability sample in the United States., Methods: The DSM-III-R psychiatric disorders among persons aged 15 to 54 years in the noninstitutionalized civilian population of the United States were assessed with data collected by lay interviewers using a revised version of the Composite International Diagnostic Interview., Results: Nearly 50% of respondents reported at least one lifetime disorder, and close to 30% reported at least one 12-month disorder. The most common disorders were major depressive episode, alcohol dependence, social phobia, and simple phobia. More than half of all lifetime disorders occurred in the 14% of the population who had a history of three or more comorbid disorders. These highly comorbid people also included the vast majority of people with severe disorders. Less than 40% of those with a lifetime disorder had ever received professional treatment, and less than 20% of those with a recent disorder had been in treatment during the past 12 months. Consistent with previous risk factor research, it was found that women had elevated rates of affective disorders and anxiety disorders, that men had elevated rates of substance use disorders and antisocial personality disorder, and that most disorders declined with age and with higher socioeconomic status., Conclusions: The prevalence of psychiatric disorders is greater than previously thought to be the case. Furthermore, this morbidity is more highly concentrated than previously recognized in roughly one sixth of the population who have a history of three or more comorbid disorders. This suggests that the causes and consequences of high comorbidity should be the focus of research attention. The majority of people with psychiatric disorders fail to obtain professional treatment. Even among people with a lifetime history of three or more comorbid disorders, the proportion who ever obtain specialty sector mental health treatment is less than 50%. These results argue for the importance of more outreach and more research on barriers to professional help-seeking.

Basic epidemiologic prevalence data are presented on sex differences in DSM-III-R major depressive episodes (MDE). The data come from the National Comorbidity Survey (NCS), the first survey in the U.S. to administer a structured psychiatric interview to a nationally representative sample of the general population. Consistent with previous research, women are approximately 1.7 times as likely as men to report a lifetime history of MDE. Age of onset analysis shows that this sex difference begins in early adolescence and persists through the mid-50s. Women also have a much higher rate of 12-month depression than men. However, women with a history of depression do not differ from men with a history of depression in either the probability of being chronically depressed in the past year or in the probability of having an acute recurrence in the past year. This means that the higher prevalence of 12-month depression among women than men is largely due to women having a higher risk of first onset. The implications of these results for future research are discussed in a closing section of the paper.

Although life events continue to be the major focus of stress research, recent studies suggest that chronic stress should be a more central focus. An evaluation of this issue is presented using data from a large community survey of married men (n = 819) and women (n = 936). Results show that chronic stresses are more strongly related to depressive symptoms than acute stresses in all but one life domain. The interaction patterns exhibited by chronic and acute stresses are predominantly associated with lower levels of depression than those predicted by a main effects model. This pattern suggests that chronic stresses may reduce the emotional effects of acute stresses. Although the processes through which this effect occurs are not clear, it is suggested that anticipation and reappraisal reduce the stressfulness of an event by making its meaning more benign. Implications for future research on chronic and acute stress effects are discussed.