Assessing the feasibility and sample quality of a national random-digit dialing cellular phone survey of young adults.

The majority of adults aged 18-34 years have only cellular phones, making random-digit dialing of landline telephones an obsolete methodology for surveillance of this population. However, 95% of this group has cellular phones. This article reports on the 2011 National Young Adult Health Survey (NYAHS), a pilot study conducted in the 50 US states and Washington, DC, that used random-digit dialing of cellular phones and benchmarked this methodology against that of the 2011 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS).

Estimates of cigarette smoking from the NJ adult tobacco survey: real or spurious?

Objective: To explore, post hoc, whether a large decline in smoking estimates between the 2005 and 2006 New Jersey Adult Tobacco Surveys is real or spurious given various methodological and environmental changes between the 2 time periods of data collection.

Methods: Using multiple data sources, we explored survey timing, poststratification approach, midinterview terminations, wireless substitution, and question order.

Results: Changes in question order were likely responsible for the majority of the unexpected decline in smoking prevalence; to a lesser degree, wireless substitution and midinterview terminations also likely contributed to an artificially exaggerated decline.