2002 NSAF Sample Design

Report No. 2 in the 2002 NSAF Methodology Series

The nonpartisan Urban Institute publishes studies, reports, and books on timely topics worthy of public consideration. The views expressed are those of the authors and should not be attributed to the Urban Institute, its trustees, or its funders.

Note: This report is available in its entirety in the Portable Document Format (PDF).

1. OVERVIEW

This report describes the sample design for the 2002 National Survey of America's Families (NSAF). This survey is the third round of the NSAF, and the objective is to estimate both the characteristics of households and persons in 2002 and changes in those characteristics since the 1997 and 1999 NSAF. While the designs for all three rounds of the NSAF are similar, several important differences exist. The first survey in 1997 was a dual-frame survey of both households with telephones and those without telephones developed to serve as a baseline for evaluating changes over time. The Round 2 survey was designed to improve estimates of change between 1997 and 1999 by retaining a substantial portion of the Round 1 sample. Analysis of the Round 2 data showed that the design changes did not improve the precision for estimates of change between rounds as well as expected. Furthermore, the retention of a portion of the sample resulted in additional operational and design complications.

Based on the findings from Round 2, the sample design for Round 3 was developed to be similar to the Round 1 design, in the sense that the sample was mainly independent of the sample from previous rounds. However, the sample design for Round 3 did include important modifications from the previous rounds' designs that were intended to reduce data collection costs. The most important design change was the reduction of the sample size for nontelephone households in the study areas. This change also has important implications for the estimation strategy, which is discussed in 2002 NSAF Sample Estimation Survey Weights, Report No. 3.

This report describes the sample design and how it relates to the designs from previous rounds. It also provides the details needed to appreciate the considerations that went into the decisions that resulted in the features of this large and complex survey.

Chapter 2 summarizes the survey goals and the sampled units, and introduces its two major components, the telephone and in-person surveys. One of the main objectives of Chapter 2 is to describe the similarities and differences between the Round 3 sample design and the designs for the previous rounds. The remaining chapters focus primarily on the Round 3 design. Chapter 3 describes the random digit dial (RDD) telephone sample design and the sampling of households in the telephone component. The subsampling procedures for households without children and for high-income households are included in this chapter. Chapter 4 gives a detailed account of the sampling for the in-person survey component. It discusses the changes in the sampling needed to move from a sample for each study area to an overall national sample for this component of the survey. Chapter 5 presents the methods used to sample children and adults from within the sampled households. It contains tables on the number of sampled and interviewed persons from the survey. Chapter 6 provides some concluding remarks.

Note: This report is available in its entirety in the Portable Document Format (PDF).

The nonpartisan Urban Institute publishes studies, reports, and books on timely topics worthy of public consideration. The views expressed are those of the authors and should not be attributed to the Urban Institute, its trustees, or its funders.

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