Does Undercoverage on the U.S. Address-based Sampling Frame Translate to Coverage Bias?

Abstract

Address-based sampling (ABS) refers to the use a list of addresses derived from the U.S. Postal Service’s Computerized Delivery Sequence File as a sampling frame. While most residential addresses are included on an ABS frame, it still suffers from undercoverage. Undercoverage is problematic only if the uncovered units have different attributes than covered units. In this article, we assess the risk of observing coverage bias on a variety of univariate point estimates in an in-person survey. We accomplish this task using a combination of survey data and Monte Carlo simulation models to vary the coverage rate and the target geography. For some variables, we found low risk of observing coverage bias. But, for others, the risk of observing bias was high for nearly all levels of coverage. Finally, we did not observe any trends by variable type that would give us the ability to predict a priori which variables may suffer bias.

Keywords

address-based sampling coverage bias undercoverage Residential Energy Consumption Survey Monte Carlo simulations

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

American Association for Public Opinion Research. 2016. Address-based Sampling (Prepared for AAPOR Council by the Task Force on Address-based Sampling; R. Harter, Chair). Oakbrook Terrace, IL: Author.

Brick

J. M.

Williams

Montaquila

J. M.

. 2011. “Address-based Sampling for Subpopulation Surveys.” Public Opinion Quarterly 75(3):409–28.

Chromy

1979. “Sequential Sample Selection Methods.” Proceedings of the Joint Statistical Meetings, Section on Survey Research Methods, 401–06. Accessed October 19, 2016. Retrieved (http://ww2.amstat.org/sections/srms/Proceedings/papers/1979_081.pdf).

Dohrmann

Han

Mohadjer

. 2006. “Residential Address Lists vs. Traditional Listing: Enumerating Households and Group Quarters.” Proceedings of the Joint Statistical Meetings, Section on Survey Research Methods, 2959–64, Seattle.

Dohrmann

Han

Mohadjer

. 2007. “Improving Coverage of Residential Address Lists in Multistage Area Samples.” Proceedings of the Joint Statistical Meetings, Section on Survey Research Methods, 3219–26, Salt Lake City.

Dohrmann

Kalton

Montaquila

Good

Berlin

. 2012. “Using Address-based Sampling Frames in Lieu of Traditional Listing: A New Approach.” Proceedings of the Joint Statistical Meetings, Section on Survey Research Methods, 3729–41, San Diego.

Eckman

English

. 2012. Geocoding to Create Survey Frames. Survey Practice, Accessed October 19, 2016. Retrieved (http://www.surveypractice.org/index.php/SurveyPractice/article/view/29/html).

Eckman

Kreuter

. 2013. “Undercoverage Rates and Undercoverage Bias in Traditional Housing Unit Listing.” Sociological Methods Research 42(3):264–93.

English

Dekker

O’Muircheartaigh

. 2011. “Choices of Frame Construction on the National Children’s Study: Impacts on Address Quality and Survey Results.” Proceedings of the Joint Statistical Meetings, Section on Survey Research Methods, 4250–59, Miami Beach.

10.

Harter

English

. 2018. “Overview of Three Field Methods for Improving Coverage of Address-based Samples for In-person Interviews.” Journal of Survey Statistics and Methodology 2(3):283–304. Accessed October 19, 2016. Retrieved (https://doi.org/10.1093/jssam/smx037).

11.

Iannacchione

V. G.

2011. “The Changing Roles of Address-based Sampling in Survey Research.” Public Opinion Quarterly 75(3):556–75.

12.

Iannacchione

V. G.

Staab

J. M.

Redden

D. T.

. 2003. “Evaluating the Use of Residential Mailing Addresses in a Metropolitan Household Survey.” Public Opinion Quarterly 67(2):202–210.

13.

Link

M. W.

Battaglia

M. P.

Frankel

M. R.

Osborn

Mokdad

A. H.

. 2008. “A Comparison of Address-based Sampling (ABS) versus Random-digit Dialing (RDD) for General Population Surveys.” Public Opinion Quarterly 72(1):6–27.

14.

Lessler

Kalsbeek

. 1992. Nonsampling Error in Surveys. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley.

15.

Liu

2009. “Impact of MAF-based Frame Coverage on Survey Estimates.” Proceedings of the Joint Statistical Meetings, Section on Survey Research Methods, 1213–22.

16.

McMichael

J. P.

Ridenhour

J. L.

Shook-Sa

B. E.

Morton

K. B.

Iannacchione

V. G.

. 2010. “Predicting the Coverage of Address-based Sampling Frames Prior to Sample Selection.” Proceedings of the Joint Statistical Meetings, Section on Survey Research Methods, 4852–59, Vancouver.

17.

McMichael

Shook-Sa

Ridenhour

Harter

. 2013. CHUM: A Frame Supplementation Procedure for Address-based Sampling. Presentation at the Federal Committee on Statistical Methodology Research Conference. Washington.

18.

Montaquila

J. M.

Hsu

Brick

J. M.

. 2011. “Using a ‘Match Rate’ Model to Predict Areas where USPS-based Address Lists May be Used in Place of Traditional Listing.” Public Opinion Quarterly 75(2):317–35.

19.

Montaquila

J. M.

Hsu

Brick

J. M.

English

O’Muircheartaigh

. 2009. “A Comparative Evaluation of Traditional Listing vs. Address-based Sampling Frames: Matching with Field Investigation of Discrepancies.” Proceedings of the Joint Statistical Meetings, Section on Survey Research Methods, 4855–62, Washington.

20.

Morton

McMichael

Ridenhour

Bose

. 2010. “Address-based Sampling and the National Survey on Drug Use and Health: Evaluating the Effects of Coverage Bias.” Proceedings of the Joint Statistical Meetings, Section on Survey Research Methods, 4902–07, Vancouver.

21.

O’Muircheartaigh

English

Eckman

. 2007. “Predicting the Relative Quality of Alternative Sampling Frames.” Proceedings of the Joint Statistical Meetings, Section on Survey Research Methods, 3239–48, Salt Lake City.

22.

Shan

Jump

Lancet

. 2012. Urban and Rural Disparities in Tobacco Use. Presentation at the National Conference on Health Statistics. Washington.

23.

Shook-Sa

B. E.

Harter

McMichael

J. P.

Ridenhour

J. L.

Dever

J. A.

. 2016. The CHUM: A Frame Supplementation Procedure for Address-based Sampling. Research Triangle Park, NC: RTI Press.

24.

Shook-Sa

B. E.

McMichael

J. P.

Ridenhour

J. L.

Iannacchione

V. G.

. 2010. “The Implications of Geocoding Error on Address-based Sampling.” Proceedings of the Joint Statistical Meeting, Section on Survey Research Methods, 3303–12.

25.

Unangst

J. J.

McMichael

. 2015. “Tracking and Evaluating Changes to Address-based Sampling Frames Over Time.” Proceedings of the 2015 Joint Statistical Meetings, American Statistical Association, Section on Survey Research Methods, 4310–16, Seattle, WA. American Statistical Association, Alexandria, VA. Accessed October 19, 2016. Retrieved (https://ww2.amstat.org/sections/srms/Proceedings/y2015/files/234257.pdf).

26.

U.S. Bureau of the Census. 2015. Housing Definitions. Accessed October 19, 2016. Retrieved (https://www.census.gov/housing/hvs/definitions.pdf).

27.

U.S. Bureau of the Census. 2016. Measuring America: Our Changing Landscape. Accessed October 19, 2016. Retrieved (https://www.census.gov/library/visualizations/2016/comm/acs-rural-urban.html).

28.

U.S. Bureau of the Census. n.d. Historical Current Population Survey/Housing Vacancy Survey (CPS/HVS) Changes. Accessed October 19, 2016. Retrieved (https://www.census.gov/housing/hvs/files/qtr317/source_17q3.pdf).

29.

USPS (U.S. Postal Service). 2016. CDS User Guide. Accessed October 19, 2016. Retrieved (https://ribbs.usps.gov/cds/documents/tech_guides/CDS_USER_GUIDE.PDF).

Supplementary Material

Please find the following supplemental material available below.

For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.

For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.

0.00 MB

0.63 MB

0.68 MB

0.78 MB

0.33 MB