The Effects of an Incentive Boost on Response Rates, Fieldwork Effort, and Costs across Two Waves of a Panel Study

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

Job Leaves and the Limits of the Family and Medical Leave Act

This article examines the need for and use of leaves designated by the Family and Medical Leave Act. Using national data, we show that women, parents, those with little income, and African Americans are particularly likely to perceive a need for job leaves. However, it is married—not single—women and Whites who are particularly likely to take such leaves. The authors suggest that this disjunction between need and use is a consequence of the construction of leave policy—that it provides for only short, unpaid leaves for a narrow slice of workers and those politically constructed as “family”—and the unresponsiveness of workplaces. These limits likely reinforce inequality based on gender, race, and family status.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/69106/2/10.1177_0730888499026004006.pd

Chronic stress, acute stress, and depressive symptoms

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/44026/1/10464_2004_Article_BF00931237.pd

Sex and depression in the National Comorbidity Survey I: Lifetime prevalence, chronicity and recurrence

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.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/30529/1/0000161.pd

Sex and depression in the national comorbidity survey. II: Cohort effects

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 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.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/31852/1/0000801.pd

Methodological studies of the Composite International Diagnostic Interview (CIDI) in the US national comorbidity survey (NCS)

This paper reports the results of methodological studies carried out in conjunction with the US National Comorbidity Survey (NCS) to evaluate Version 1.0 of the World Health Organization (WHO) Composite International Diagnostic Interview (CIDI). These studies relied on recent survey data collection methodology literature to investigate problems regarding question comprehension, instruction comprehension, respondent motivation to report accurately, and regarding the limits of respondent ability to report accurately. Insights and strategies developed by survey methodologists were used to modify the CIDI in an effort to address these problems. The paper describes these strategies and methodological studies that evaluated their effects, including a clinical reappraisal study and a field experiment that evaluated the impact of question modifications on prevalence estimates. The paper closes with a discussion of remaining methodological problems with the CIDI and potentially useful future studies that might be able to develop solutions to these problems. Copyright © 1998 Whurr Publishers Ltd.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/34217/1/33_ftp.pd

Lifetime and 12-month prevalence of DSM-III-R psychiatric disorders in the United States. Results from the National Comorbidity Survey

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

Survey breakoffs in a computer-assisted telephone interview

"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." (author's abstract

Switching from telephone to web-first mixed-mode data collection: Results from the Transition into Adulthood Supplement to the US Panel Study of Income Dynamics

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.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/173074/1/rssa12840_am.pdfhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/173074/2/rssa12840.pd

The Panel Study of Income Dynamics: overview, recent innovations, and potential for life course research

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