Can They and Will They? Exploring Proxy Response of Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity in the Current Population Survey

Abstract

Within the United States Federal Statistical System, there has been interest in capturing sexual orientation (SO) and gender identity (GI), collectively known as SOGI, on surveys to allow researchers to estimate the size and distribution of sexual and gender minority populations. SOGI measurement in federal surveys may also help to identify disparities between people who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) and those who do not in domains such as health, crime, or employment. Although research has been conducted on best practices for SOGI measurement in surveys, it has largely been limited to examination of self-reports. Many federal surveys use proxy reports, when one person generally responds for all household members. This research used cognitive interviews and focus groups to explore proxy response to SOGI questions. We explored potential sources of measurement error in proxy responses to SOGI questions, including sensitivity, difficulty, as well as the willingness and ability of respondents to answer SOGI questions about other household members. We also conducted paired interviews with members of the same household to assess level of agreement for SOGI questions. Findings suggest that measuring SOGI by proxy may be feasible in federal large-scale, general population surveys.

Keywords

SOGI measurement proxy reports federal surveys

References

Bickart, B.A., J. Blair, G. Menon, and S. Sudman. 1990. “Cognitive Aspects of Proxy Reporting of Behavior.” In Advances in Consumer Research 17, edited by M. Goldberg, G. Gorn, and R. Pollay, 198–206. Provo, UT: Association for Consumer Research.

Bickart, B.A., J.M. Phillips, and J. Blair. 2006. “The Effects of Discussion and Question Wording on Self and Proxy Reports of Behavioral Frequencies.” Marketing Letters 17: 167–180. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11002-006-5232-1.

Blair, J., G. Menon, and B. Bickart. 1991. “Measurement Effects in Self vs. Proxy Responses: An Information-Processing Perspective.” In Measurement Errors in Surveys, edited by P.P. Biemer, R.M. Groves, L.E. Lyberg, N.A. Mathiowetz, and S. Sudman, 145–166. New York: Wiley.

Boehm, L.M. 1989. “Reliability of Proxy Response in the Current Population Surve.” In Proceedings of the Survey Research Methods Section: American Statistical Association, 486–489. Alexandria, VA: American Statistical Association. Available at: https://ww2.amstat.org/sections/srms/Proceedings/papers/1989_086.pdf (accessed February 2018).

Boyle, C.A., E.A. Brann, and Selected Cancers Cooperative Study Group. 1992. “Proxy Respondents and the Validity of Occupational and Other Exposure Data.” American Journal of Epidemiology 136: 712–721. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordjournals.aje.a116550.

Cahill, S., R. Singal, C. Grasso, D. King, K. Mayer, K. Baker, and H. Makadon. 2014. “Do Ask, Do Tell: High Levels of Acceptability by Patients of Routine Collection of Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity in Four Diverse American Community Health Centers.” PLoS One 9: 1–8. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0107104.

Cobb, C. 2018. “Answering for Someone Else: Proxy Reports in Survey Research.” In The Palgrave Handbook of Survey Research, edited by D.L. Vannette and J.A. Krosnick, 87–93. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-54395-6.

Dahlhamer, J.M., A.M. Galinsky, S.S. Joestl, and B.W. Ward. 2014. “Sexual Orientation in the 2013 National Health Interview Survey: A Quality Assessment.” Vital and Health Statistics. Series 2, Data Evaluation and Methods Research 169: 1–32.

Davis, M.C., J. Fulton, and A. Henderson. 2017. “Is a Proxy Response Good Enough? Using Paired Cognitive Interviews to Assess the Accuracy of Proxy Responses.” Presentation at the DC-AAPOR/WSS Summer Preview/Review Conference. Available at: http://washstat.org/presentations/20170724/Davis.pdf (accessed February 2018).

10.

DeMaio, T.J., N. Bates, and M. O’Connell. 2013. “Exploring Measurement Error Issues in Reporting of Same-Sex Couples.” Public Opinion Quarterly 77: 145–158. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/poq/nfs066.

11.

Edgar, J., J. Murphy, and M. Keating. 2016. “Comparing Traditional and Crowdsourcing Methods for Pretesting Survey Questions.” SAGE Open 6: 1–14. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/2158244016671770.

12.

Ellis, R., M. Virgile, J. Holzberg, D. Nelson, J. Edgar, P. Phipps, and R. Kaplan. 2017. “Assessing the Feasibility of Asking about Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity in the Current Population Survey: Results from Cognitive Interviews.” Technical Report, Center for Survey Measurement, U.S. Census Bureau; Office of Survey Methods Research, Bureau of Labor Statistics. Available at: https://www.bls.gov/osmr/pdf/cps_sogi_cognitive_interview_report.pdf (accessed February 2018).

13.

Fazio, R.H. 1986. “How Do Attitudes Guide Behavior?” In Handbook of Motivation and Cognition: Foundations of Social Behavior, edited by R.M. Sorrentino and E.T. Higgins, 204–243. New York: Guilford Press.

14.

Federal Interagency Working Group on Improving Measurement of Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity in Federal Surveys. 2016. “Current Measures of Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity in Federal Surveys.” Available at: https://s3.amazonaws.com/sitesusa/wp-content/uploads/sites/242/2014/04/WorkingGroupPaper1_CurrentMeasures_08-16.pdf (accessed February 2018).

15.

Fisher, A.D., G. Castellini, J. Ristori, H. Casale, G. Giovanardi, N. Carone, E. Fanni, M. Mosconi, G. Ciocca, E.A. Jannini, and V. Ricca. 2017. “Who Has the Worst Attitudes Toward Sexual Minorities? Comparison of Transphobia and Homophobia Levels in Gender Dysphoric Individuals, the General Population and Health Care Providers.” Journal of Endocrinological Investigation 40: 263–273. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40618-016-0552-3.

16.

Galupo, M.P., K.S. Davis, A.L. Grynkiewicz, and R.C. Mitchell. 2014. “Conceptualization of Sexual Orientation Identity among Sexual Minorities: Patterns across Sexual and Gender Identity.” Journal of Bisexuality 14: 433–456. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/15299716.2014.933466.

17.

Garbarski, D. 2014. “Comparing Self and Maternal Reports of Adolescents’ General Health Status: Do Self and Proxy Reports Differ in Their Relationships with Covariates?” Quality of Life Research 23: 1953–1965. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11136-014-0649-0.

18.

Gates, G. 2011. “How Many People are Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender?” Los Angeles, CA: The Williams Institute. Available at: https://escholarship.org/uc/item/09h684x2 (accessed September 2018).

19.

GenIUSS Group. 2014. “Best Practices for Asking Questions to Identify Transgender and Other Gender Minority Respondents on Population-Based Surveys.” Los Angeles, CA: The Williams Institute.

20.

Grieco, E.M. and D.M. Armstrong. 2014. “Assessing the ‘Year of Naturalization’ Data in the American Community Survey: Characteristics of Naturalized Foreign Born Who Report – and Don’t Report – the Year They Obtained Citizenship.” Presentation at the Applied Demography Conference, San Antonio, TX.

21.

Holzberg, J., R. Ellis, M. Virgile, D. Nelson, J. Edgar, P. Phipps, and R. Kaplan. 2017. “Assessing the Feasibility of Asking about Gender Identity in the Current Population Survey: Results from Focus Groups with Members of the Transgender Population.” Technical Report, Center for Survey Measurement, U.S. Census Bureau; Office of Survey Methods Research, Bureau of Labor Statistics. Available at: https://www.bls.gov/osmr/pdf/cps_sogi_focus_group_report.pdf (accessed February 2018).

22.

Horwitz, R. and J. Finamore. 2017. “Do Focus Group Participants Mean What They Say? A Field test of Mailing Materials Updated Based on Qualitative Feedback.” Presentation at the Conference of the European Survey Research Association: Lisbon, Portugal.

23.

Jäger, A. 2005. “Explaining the ‘Accuracy’ of Proxy-Reports on Attitudes Towards Immigrants in Germany: Two Approaches Compared.” Advances in Methodology and Statistics 2: 27–57.

24.

Joloza, T., J. Traynor, and L. Haselden. 2009. “Developing Survey Questions on Sexual Identity: Report on the General Lifestyle (GLF) Split-Sample Pilot.” Newport: for National Statistics (Household, Labour Market and Social Wellbeing Division).

25.

Joloza, T., J. Evans, and R. O’Brien. 2010. “Measuring Sexual Identity: An Evaluation Report.” Office for National Statistics, United Kingdom. Available at: https://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/ethnicity/measuring-sexual-identity–-evaluation-report/2010/sexual-identity.pdf (accessed February 2018).

26.

Jones, E.E. and R.E. Nisbett. 1971. “The Actor and the Observer: Divergent Perceptions of Behavior.” In Attribution: Perceiving the Causes of Behavior, edited by E.E. Jones, D.E. Kanouse, H.H. Kelley, R.E. Nisbett, S. Valins, and B. Weiner, 79–94. Hillsdale, NJ, US: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.

27.

King, T., S. Cook, and J.H. Childs. 2012. “Interviewing Proxy versus Self-Reporting Respondents to Obtain Information Regarding Living Situations.” In Proceedings for the Joint Statistical Meetings, Survey Research Methods Section, 5667–5677. Alexandria, VA: American Statistical Association. Available at: https://www.amstat.org/sections/srms/proceedings/y2012/files/400243_500698.pdf (accessed February 2018).

28.

Kojetin, B.A. and L. Miller. 1993. “The Intrahousehold Communications Study: Estimating the Accuracy of Proxy Responses at the Dyadic Level.” In Proceedings of the Section on Survey Research Methods, 1095–1100. Alexandria, VA: American Statistical Association. Available at: http://www.asasrms.org/Proceedings/papers/1993_188.pdf (accessed October 2019).

29.

Kojetin, B.A. and P. Mullin. 1995. “The Quality of Proxy Reports on the Current Population Survey (CPS).” In Proceedings of the Section on Survey Research Methods, 1110–1115. Alexandria, VA: American Statistical Association. Available at: http://www.asasrms.org/Proceedings/papers/1995_193.pdf (accessed October 2019).

30.

Kojetin, B.A. and J.M. Tanur. 1996. “Proxies for Youths and Adults: Communication and Reports of Job Search.” In Proceedings of the Section on Survey Research Methods, 254–259. Alexandria, VA: American Statistical Association. Available at: http://ww2.amstat.org/sections/srms/Proceedings/papers/1996_039.pdf (accessed February 2018).

31.

Kreuter, F., S. Presser, and R. Tourangeau. 2008. “Social Desirability Bias in CATI, IVR, and Web Surveys: The Effects of Mode and Question Sensitivity.” Public Opinion Quarterly 72: 847–865. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/poq/nfn063.

32.

Krosnick, J.A., S. Presser, K. Husbands, S. Fealing, S. Ruggles, and D.L. Vannette. 2015. “The Future of Survey Research: Challenges and Opportunities.” The National Science Foundation Advisory Committee for the Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences Subcommittee on Advancing SBE Survey Research. Available at: http://www.nsf.gov/sbe/AC_Materials/The_Future_of_Survey_Research.pdf (accessed February 2018).

33.

Kvale, S. and S. Brinkmann. 2015. InterViews: Learning the Craft of Qualitative Research Interviewing (3rd edition). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

34.

Lavtar, D., M. Zaletel, and A. Rogelj. 2016. “Proxy Responses to Subjective Questions: The Influence on the Results of the Health Expectancy Indicator.” European Conference on Quality in Official Statistics, Madrid. Available at: http://www.ine.es/q2016/docs/q2016Final00147.pdf (accessed September 2018).

35.

Lee, S., N.A. Mathiowetz, and R. Tourangeau. 2004. “Perceptions of Disability: The Effect of Self-and Proxy Response.” Journal of Official Statistics 20: 671–686.

36.

Lombardi, E. and S. Banik. 2016. “The Utility of the Two-Step Gender Measure within Trans and Cis Populations.” Sexuality Research and Social Policy 13: 288–296. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13178-016-0220-6.

37.

Magaziner, J., S.S. Bassett, J.R. Hebel, and A. Gruber-Baldini. 1996. “Use of Proxies to Measure Health and Functional Status in Epidemiologic Studies of Community-Dwelling Women Aged 65 years and Older.” American Journal of Epidemiology 143: 283–292.

38.

McCabe, S.E., T.L. Hughes, W. Bostwick, M. Morales, and C.J. Boyd. 2012. “Measurement of Sexual Identity in Surveys: Implications for Substance Abuse Research.” Archives of Sexual Behavior 41: 649–657. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-011-9768-7.

39.

Mellow, W. and H. Sider. 1983. “Accuracy of Response in Labor Market Surveys: Evidence and Implications.” Journal of Labor Economics 1: 331–344.

40.

Mingay, D.J., S.K. Shevell, N.M. Bradburn, and C. Ramirez. 1994. “Self and Proxy Reports of Everyday Events.” In Autobiographical Memory and the Validity of Retrospective Reports, edited by N. Schwarz and S. Sudman, 235–250. New York: Springer.

41.

Moore, J.C. 1988. “Miscellanea, Self/Proxy Response Status and Survey Response Quality: A Review of the Literature.” Journal of Official Statistics 4: 155–172.

42.

Moore, J.C. and E.J. Welniak. 2000. “Income Measurement Error in Surveys: A Review.” Journal of Official Statistics 16: 331–361.

43.

Ortman, J.M., N. Bates, A. Brown, and R.C. Sawyer. 2017. “Optimizing Self and Proxy Response to Survey Questions on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity.” Presentation at the Annual Meeting of the Population Association of America, Chicago, IL, April, 2017. Available at https://paa.confex.com/paa/2017/mediafile/ExtendedAbstract/Paper13962/Ortman%20Bates%20Brown%20Sawyer%20PAA%202017.pdf (accessed February 2018).

44.

Pascale, J. 2016. “Modernizing a Major Federal Government Survey: A Review of the Redesign of the Current Population Survey Health Insurance Questions.” Journal of Official Statistics 32: 461–486. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/JOS-2016-0024.

45.

Park, J.E. 2015. “Proxy Reporting of Sexual Orientation Information in Household Surveys.” Internal Presentation, Office of Statistical and Science Policy, Office of Management and Budget.

46.

Pierce, J.P., A. Farkas, N. Evans, C. Berry, W. Choi, B. Rosbrook, M. Johnson, and D.G. Bal. 1993. “Tobacco Use in California: A Focus on Preventing Uptake in Adolescents.” Sacramento, CA: California Department of Health Services.

47.

Reynolds, J. and J.B. Wenger. 2012. “He Said, She Said: The Gender Wage Gap According to Self and Proxy Reports in the Current Population Survey.” Social Science Research 41: 392–411. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssresearch.2011.10.005.

48.

Robertson, R.E., F.W. Tran, L.N. Lewark, and R. Epstein. 2018. “Estimates of Non-Heterosexual Prevalence: The Roles of Anonymity and Privacy in Survey Methodology.” Archives of Sexual Behavior 47: 1069–1084. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-017-1044-z.

49.

Saldaña, J. 2015. The Coding Manual for Qualitative Researchers. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

50.

Schwarz, N. and T. Wellens. 1997. “Cognitive Dynamics of Proxy Responding: The Diverging Perspectives of Actors and Observers.” Journal of Official Statistics 13: 159–179.

51.

SMART (Sexual Minority Assessment Research Team). 2009. Best Practices for Asking Questions about Sexual Orientation on Surveys. Los Angeles, CA: The Williams Institute, UCLA School of Law. Available at: https://escholarship.org/uc/item/706057d5 (accessed November 2019).

52.

Sudman, S., B. Bickart, J. Blair, and G. Menon. 1994. “The Effect of Participation Level on Reports of Behavior and Attitudes by Proxy Reporters.” In Autobiographical Memory and the Validity of Retrospective Reports, edited by N. Schwarz and S. Sudman, 251–265. New York: Springer. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4612-2624-6_17.

53.

Tamborini, C.R. and C. Kim. 2013. “Are Proxy Interviews Associated with Biased Earnings Reports? Marital Status and Gender Effects of Proxy.” Social Science Research 42: 499–512. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssresearch.2012.11.004.

54.

Todorov, A. 2003. “Cognitive Procedures for Correcting Proxy-Response Biases in Surveys.” Applied Cognitive Psychology 17: 215–224.

55.

Todorov, A. and C. Kirchner. 2000. “Bias in Proxies’ Reports of Disability: Data from the National Health Interview Survey on Disability.” American Journal of Public Health 90: 1248–1253. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/acp.850.

56.

Tourangeau, R. 1984. “Cognitive Sciences and Survey Methods.” In Cognitive Aspects of Survey Methodology: Building a Bridge Between Disciplines, edited by T. Jabine, M.L. Straf, J.M. Tanur, and R. Tourangeau, 73–100. Washington, D.C. National Academy Press.

57.

Tourangeau, R. and T. Yan. 2007. “Sensitive Questions in Surveys.” Psychological Bulletin 133: 859–883. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.133.5.859.

58.

Westgate, E., R. Riskind, and B. Nosek. 2015. “Implicit Preferences for Straight People over Lesbian Women and Gay Men Weakened from 2006 to 2013.” Collabra: Psychology 1: 1–10. DOI: http://doi.org/10.1525/collabra.

59.

Willis, G.B. 2015. Analysis of the Cognitive Interview in Questionnaire Design. New York: Oxford University Press.