Introducing Educational Attainment to the Poststratification Adjustment in the National Survey on Drug Use and Health

Abstract

The National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) provides national estimates of substance use and mental health among the civilian, noninstitutionalized population aged 12 or older in the United States. Since Quarter 4 of 2020, multimode (web and in-person) data collection has been employed in NSDUH. Adult web respondents had higher levels of educational attainment than adult in-person respondents, and educational attainment is often correlated with survey outcomes in NSDUH. To correct the imbalance of the educational attainment distributions across survey modes, educational attainment was added as a covariate to the poststratification adjustment in the 2020, 2021, and 2022 NSDUH weighting. Educational attainment proportions calculated from 1-year American Community Survey (ACS) data were used to derive control totals for the main effect and two-way interactions of educational attainment by demographic variables and by state. Two approaches for calculating educational attainment proportions, marginal distribution and cell distribution, were compared for accuracy across domains and summation of subdomains. The impact of excluding the institutionalized population and the active-duty military population from the 1-year ACS data was also investigated and is discussed