Methodological Projects - Adult Family Member

Attachment 6 - NHIS Methodological Projects for 2017
The Division of Health Interview Statistics (DHIS) is in the process of redesigning the NHIS questionnaire, for a
planned implementation of the new survey instrument beginning in January 2018. To inform and support
decision making, a number of short, web- and/or mail-based, quick-turnaround methodological and cognitive
testing projects are anticipated for 2017.
The aims of these projects are to test new and updated questionnaire items, evaluate the impact of different
response options on answer choices, and measure respondents’ comprehension of health care-related terms
and concepts. To this end, these projects will build on information learned in prior NHIS follow-back surveys and
methodological experiments, and will use a commercial, web-based survey platform (e.g., SurveyMonkey).
Research questions to be answered with this series of projects may include:
1. How does alternate question wording affect respondent comprehension of the constructs to be
measured?
2. What is the test/retest reliability of newly-developed questions?
3. What are preferred answer choices for categorical questions?
4. What probes (e.g., time frames or date ranges) work best to promote recall of medical visit dates?
5. Are respondents able to accurately report the specific of health care encounters, e.g. venue, provider
type, services received, content of care?
The sample for these projects will consist of current- and prior-year (2013-2017) NHIS respondents who
provided a valid email address, as well as members of the commercial web panel.