Cultural variability in the effects of question design features on respondent comprehension of health surveys.

Purpose: The aim is to identify the characteristics of common health survey questions that may be associated with cross-cultural variability in question comprehension.

Methods: Interviews with respondents representing four cultural subgroups in the United States were analyzed through behavior coding to identify survey question characteristics that may be associated with cross-cultural variability in comprehension. Using survey responses as the unit of analysis, nested within survey respondents and survey questions, hierarchical linear modeling was used to examine the effects of four questionnaire design features on cultural variations in comprehension difficulties.

An investigation of the effects of social desirability on the validity of self-reports of cancer screening behaviors.

We evaluated 4 approaches to improving the reporting of disease prevention and screening behaviors. The conditions evaluated include (1) the mode in which data are collected, (2) asking the interview subject about her intention to obtain the procedure before asking whether the behavior occurred, (3) asking the interview subject about barriers that might keep respondents from getting the procedure before asking about whether she has received it, and (4) asking the interview subject about exceptions to the regularity with which she might report getting the examination. Data were collected in 2001 from a sample of women aged 50 and older in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois.