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Title: Underreporting of Substance Use in a National Longitudinal Youth Cohort: Individual and Interviewer Effects
Resulting in 1 citation.
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Mensch, Barbara S. Kandel, Denise B. |
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Underreporting of Substance Use in a National Longitudinal Youth Cohort: Individual and Interviewer Effects Public Opinion Quarterly 52,1 (Spring 1988): 100-124. Also: http://poq.oxfordjournals.org/content/52/1/100.abstract Cohort(s): NLSY79 Publisher: University of Chicago Press Keyword(s): Data Quality/Consistency; Drug Use; Longitudinal Surveys; Self-Reporting; Substance Use; Underreporting The quality of drug data in the 1984 wave of the NLSY is explored. Comparisons with other national surveys indicate that underreporting of use of illicit drugs other than marijuana appears to have taken place, and that light users of these drugs are under-represented among the self-acknowledged users. Comparison with marijuana use reported four years earlier indicates that experimental marijuana users are much less likely than extensive users to acknowledge involvement. Even after controlling for frequency of use, underreporting is more common among terminal high school dropouts and minorities. Not only individual characteristics but field conditions also contribute to underreporting. Familiarity with the interviewer, as measured by number of prior interviewing contacts, depresses drug use reporting. The authors speculate that interviewer familiarity increases salience of normative standards and that participants respond not only in terms of their past familiarity but also their subjective expectations regarding the probability of a future encounter with the interviewer. |
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Bibliography Citation
Mensch, Barbara S. and Denise B. Kandel. "Underreporting of Substance Use in a National Longitudinal Youth Cohort: Individual and Interviewer Effects." Public Opinion Quarterly 52,1 (Spring 1988): 100-124.
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