BACKGROUND Large-scale mental health surveys have provided invaluable information regarding the prevalence of specific mental disorders and service use for mental health reasons. Unfortunately, because vast surveys conducted face to face are very costly, many countries and provinces do not embark upon this path of research, thus depriving themselves of a rich source of data useful for service p...

Household surveys are moving from interviewer-administered modes to self-administered modes for data collection, but many households do not accurately follow within-household selection procedures in mail surveys. In this article, we examine accuracy of within-household selection using an oldest adult/youngest adult method in web, mail, and mixed-mode surveys. The frame for this study comes from...

OBJECTIVES Telephone survey data are widely used to describe population health, but some fear that people with disabilities cannot participate. We tested the hypothesis that a telephone survey would underrepresent adults with disabilities, and that the adults with disabilities who responded would report lower prevalences of sensory, mental, self-care, and multiple limitations than those observe...

Use of random-digit dialing (RDD) for conducting health surveys is increasingly problematic because of declining participation rates and eroding frame coverage. Alternative survey modes and sampling frames may improve response rates and increase the validity of survey estimates. In a 2005 pilot study conducted in six states as part of the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, the authors ...

BACKGROUND To examine the trend of "mobile only" households, and households that have a mobile phone or landline telephone listed in the telephone directory, and to describe these groups by various socio-demographic and health indicators. METHOD Representative face-to-face population health surveys of South Australians, aged 15 years and over, were conducted in 1999, 2004, 2006, 2007 and 2008...

BACKGROUND We compared two methods of measuring provider performance of tobacco control activities: immediate "exit cards" versus delayed telephone follow-up surveys. Current standards, e.g. HEDIS, use delayed patient measures that may over or under-estimate overall performance. METHODS Patients completed exit cards in 60 dental practices immediately after a visit to measure whether the provi...