|                                                                                                         |  |  | 
|-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |  |  | 
|                                                                                                        
|                                                                                                        
|                                                                                                         |  |  | 
|                                                                                                         |  |  | 
|Impact of
      September 11, 2001 Events onSubstance
      Abuse and Mental Health in the New York Area

# Appendix A

# Description of the Survey

## A.1	Sample Design

The 2000 and 2001 NHSDA sample designs were part of a coordinated 5-year sample design that will provide estimates for all 50 States plus the District of Columbia for the years 1999 through 2003.  The coordinated design facilitates 50 percent overlap in first-stage sampling units between each 2 successive years.

For the 5-year 50-State design, eight States were designated as large sample States (California, Florida, Illinois, Michigan, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Texas), with samples large enough to support direct State estimates.  For the remaining 42 States and the District of Columbia, smaller, but adequate, samples were selected to support State estimates using small area estimation (SAE) techniques.

States were first stratified into a total of 900 field interviewer (FI) regions (48 regions in each large sample State and 12 regions in each small sample State).  These regions were contiguous geographic areas designed to yield the same number of interviews on average. Within FI regions, adjacent Census blocks were combined to form the first-stage sampling units, called area segments.  A total of 96 segments per FI region were selected with probability proportional to population size in order to support the 5-year sample and any supplemental studies that SAMHSA may choose to field.  Eight sample segments per FI region were fielded during the 2000 survey year.  Of these, four segments were retained in the 2001 year and four new segments were added, bringing the number of segments per FI region back to eight.

These sampled segments were allocated equally into four separate samples, one for each 3-month period during the year, so that the survey is essentially continuous in the field.  In each of these area segments, a listing of all addresses was made, from which a sample of addresses was selected.  In these sample units (which can be either households or units within group quarters), sample persons were randomly selected using an automated screening procedure programmed in a handheld computer carried by the interviewers.  Youths aged 12 to 17 and young adults aged 18 to 25 were oversampled at this stage.  Targeted sample sizes for youths aged 12 to 17 in 2000 and 2001 were 25,000 and 22,500, respectively.  Targeted sample sizes in both years for both groups, the young adults aged 18 to 25 and those aged 26 or older, were 22,500 in both years.  Thus, the total targeted sample sizes were 70,000 and 67,500 in 2000 and 2001, respectively.

The survey covers (a) residents of households living in houses/townhouses, apartments, condominiums, and so on; (b) residents living in noninstitutional group quarters, such as shelters, rooming/boarding houses, college dormitories, migratory workers' camps, and halfway houses; and (c) civilians living on military bases.  Although the survey covers these types of units (they are given a nonzero probability of selection), sample sizes of most specific groups are too small to provide separate estimates.  Persons excluded from the survey include homeless people who do not use shelters, active military personnel, and residents of institutional group quarters, such as correctional facilities, nursing homes, mental institutions, and hospitals.

## A.2	Data Collection Methodology

The data collection method used in the NHSDA involves in-person interviews with sample persons, incorporating procedures that would be likely to increase respondents' cooperation and willingness to report honestly about their illicit drug use behavior. Confidentiality is stressed in all written and verbal communications with potential respondents, respondents' names are not collected with the data, and computer-assisted interviewing (CAI), including audio computer-assisted self-interviewing (ACASI), is used to provide a private and confidential setting to complete the interview.

Introductory letters are sent to sampled addresses, followed by an interviewer visit.  A 5-minute screening procedure conducted using a handheld computer involves listing all household members along with their basic demographic data.  The computer uses the demographic data in a preprogrammed selection algorithm to select up to two sample persons, depending on the composition of the household.  This selection process is designed to provide the necessary sample sizes for the specified population age groupings.

Interviewers attempt to conduct the NHSDA interview immediately with each selected person in the household.  The interviewer asks the selected respondent to identify a private area in the home away from other household members to conduct the interview.  The interview averages about an hour and includes a combination of computer-assisted personal interviewing (CAPI) and ACASI.  The interview begins in CAPI mode with the FI reading the questions from the computer screen and entering the respondent's replies into the computer.  The interview then transitions to the ACASI mode for the sensitive questions.  In this mode, the respondent can read the questions silently on the computer screen and/or listen to the questions through headphones and enter his or her responses directly into the computer.  At the conclusion of the ACASI section, the interview returns to the CAPI mode, with the interviewer completing the questionnaire.

No personal identifying information is captured in the CAI record for the respondent.  At the end of the day when an interviewer has completed one or more interviews, he or she transmits the data to RTI in Research Triangle Park, NC, via telephone.

## A.3	Data Processing

Interviewers initiate nightly data transmissions of interview data and call records on days when they work.  Computers at RTI direct the information to a raw data file that consists of one record for each completed interview.  Even though much editing and consistency checking is done by the CAI program during the interview, additional, more complex edits and consistency checks are completed at RTI.  Resolution of most inconsistencies and missing data is done using machine editing routines developed specifically for the CAI instrument.  Cases are retained only if the respondent provided data on lifetime use of cigarettes and at least nine other substances.

### A.3.1	Statistical Imputation

For some key variables that still have missing values after the application of editing, statistical imputation is used to replace missing data with appropriate response codes.

Considerable changes in the imputation procedures used in prior NHSDAs were introduced beginning with the 1999 CAI sample.  Three types of statistical imputation procedures are used:  (a) a standard unweighted sequential hot-deck imputation, (b) a univariate combination of weighted regression imputation and a random nearest neighbor hot-deck imputation (which could be viewed as a univariate predictive mean neighborhood method), and (c) a combination of weighted regression and a random nearest neighbor hot-deck imputation using a neighborhood where imputation is accomplished on several response variables at once (which could be viewed as a multivariate predictive mean neighborhood method). Because the primary demographic variables (e.g., age, gender, race/ethnicity, employment, and education) are imputed first, few variables are available for model-based imputation.  Moreover, most demographic variables have very few missing values.  Hence, unweighted sequential hot deck is used to impute missing values for demographic variables.  The demographic variables can then be used as covariates in models for drug use measures.  These models also include other drug use variables as covariates.  For example, the model for cocaine use includes cigarette, alcohol, and marijuana use as covariates.  The univariate predictive mean neighborhood method is used as an intermediate imputation procedure for recency of use, 12-month frequency of use, 30-day frequency of use, and 30-day binge drinking frequency for all drugs where these variables occur. The final imputed values for these variables are determined using multivariate predictive mean neighborhoods.  The final imputed values for age at first use for all drugs and age at first daily cigarette use are determined using univariate predictive mean neighborhoods.

Hot-deck imputation involves the replacement of a missing value with a valid code taken from another respondent who is "similar" and has complete data.  Responding and nonresponding units are sorted together by a variable or collection of variables closely related to the variable of interest *Y*.  For sequential hot-deck imputation, a missing value of *Y* is replaced by the nearest responding value preceding it in the sequence.  With random nearest neighbor hot-deck imputation, the missing value of *Y* is replaced by a responding value from a donor randomly selected from a set of potential donors close to the unit with the missing value according to some distance metric.  The predictive mean neighborhood imputation involves determining a predicted mean using a model, such as a linear regression or logistic regression, depending on the response variable, where the models incorporate the design weights.  In the univariate case, the neighborhood of potential donors is determined by calculating the relative distance between the predicted mean for an item nonrespondent and the predicted mean for each potential donor and choosing those within a small preset value (this is the "distance metric"). The pool of donors is further restricted to satisfy logical constraints whenever necessary (e.g., age at first crack use must not be younger than age at first cocaine use).  Whenever possible, more than one response variable was considered at a time.  In that (multivariate) case, the Mahalanobis distance across a vector of several response variables' predicted means is calculated between a given item nonrespondent and each candidate donor.  The *k* smallest Mahalanobis distances, say 30, determine the neighborhood of candidate donors, and the nonrespondent's missing values in this vector are replaced by those of the randomly selected donor.  A respondent may only be missing some of the responses within this vector of response variables; in that case, only the missing values were replaced, and donors were restricted to be logically consistent with the response variables that were not missing.

Although statistical imputation could not proceed separately within each State due to insufficient pools of donors, information about the State of residence of each respondent is incorporated in the modeling and hot-deck steps.  For most drugs, respondents were separated into three State usage categories for each drug depending on the response variable of interest; respondents from States with high usage of a given drug were placed in one category, respondents from medium usage States into another, and the remainder into a third category. This categorical "State rank" variable was used as one set of covariates in the imputation models. In addition, eligible donors for each item nonrespondent were restricted to be of the same State usage category (the same "State rank") as the item nonrespondent.

### A.3.2	Development of Analysis Weights

The general approach to developing and calibrating analysis weights involved developing design-based weights, *dk*, as the inverse of the selection probabilities of the households and persons.  Adjustment factors, *ak*(greek letter lambda), were then applied to the design-based weights to adjust for nonresponse, to control for extreme weights when necessary, and to poststratify to known population control totals.  In view of the importance of State-level estimates with the new 50-State design, it was necessary to control for a much larger number of known population totals.  Several other modifications to the general weight adjustment strategy used in prior NHSDAs were also implemented for the first time beginning with the 1999 CAI sample.

Weight adjustments were based on a generalization of Deville and Särndal's (1992) logit model.  This generalized exponential model (GEM) (Folsom & Singh, 2000) incorporates unit-specific bounds (script l*k*, *uk*), *k*epsilon*s*, for the adjustment factor *ak*(greek letter lambda) as follows:

This equation presents the adjustment factor for unit k as a function of the unit's covariates x and its specific bounds.  It is parameterized by a p-vector lambda (where p is the dimension of x). ,

where *ck* are prespecified centering constants, such that

script l*k* < *ck* < *uk* and *Ak* = (*uk* - script l*k*) / (*uk* - *ck*)(*ck* - script l*k*) .

The variables script l*k*, *ck*, and *uk* are user-specified bounds, and greek letter lambdais the column vector of  *p* model parameters corresponding to the *p* covariates *x*.  The greek letter lambda-parameters are estimated by solving

This equation implicitly defines the vector lambda (used in the last equation) as a function of control totals.

where Tilde T Subscript X denotes control totals that could be either nonrandom, as is generally the case with poststratification, or random, as is generally the case for nonresponse adjustment.

The final weights *wk* = *dkak*(greek letter lambda) minimize the distance function delta(*w*,*d*) defined as

This equation defines a distance function delta. The final weights are defined as those that minimize delta.

This general approach was used at several stages of the weight adjustment process including (a) adjustment of household weights for nonresponse at the screener level, (b) poststratification of household weights to meet population controls for various demographic groups by State, (c) adjustment of household weights for extremes, (d) poststratification of selected person weights, (e) adjustment of person weights for nonresponse at the questionnaire level, (f) poststratification of person weights, and (g) adjustment of person weights for extremes.

Every effort was made to include as many relevant State-specific covariates (typically defined by demographic domains within States) as possible in the multivariate models used to calibrate the weights (nonresponse adjustment and poststratification steps).  Because further subdivision of State samples by demographic covariates often produced small cell sample sizes, it was not possible to retain all State-specific covariates and still estimate the necessary model parameters with reasonable precision.  Therefore, a hierarchical structure was used in grouping States with covariates defined at the national level, at the Census division level within the Nation, at the State group within the Census division, and, whenever possible, at the State level. In every case, the controls for total population within States and the five age groups within States were maintained.  Census control totals by age and race were required for the civilian, noninstitutionalized population of each State.  Published Census projections (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 2000) reflected the total residential population (which includes military and institutionalized).  The 1990 Census 5 percent public use micro data file (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1992) was used to distribute the State residential population into two groups, and then the method of raking-ratio adjustment was used to get the desired domain-level counts such that they respect both the State-level residential population counts and the national-level civilian and noncivilian counts for each domain.  This was done for the midpoint of each NHSDA data collection period (i.e., quarter) such that counts aggregated over the quarters correspond to the annual counts.

Several other enhancements to the weighting procedures were also implemented starting in 1999.  The control of extreme weights through winsorization was incorporated into the calibration processes.  Winsorization truncates extreme values at prespecified levels and distributes the trimmed portions of weights to the nontruncated cases; this process was carried out using the GEM model discussed above.  A step was added to poststratify the household-level weights to obtain Census-consistent estimates based on the household rosters from all screened households; these household roster-based estimates then provided the control totals needed to calibrate the respondent pair weights for subsequent planned analyses.  An additional step poststratified the selected person sample to conform with the adjusted roster estimates.  The final step in poststratification related the respondent person sample to external Census data (defined within State whenever possible, as discussed above).

### A.3.3	Standardization of Weights to Improve Estimates of Change

The NHSDA is a cross-sectional survey.  Households and individuals are included in the sample only once.  As the sample composition varies between time periods, estimates may fluctuate.

For example, assume smoking by males is higher than by females.  If the weighted proportion of males in the sample is higher in Period 1 than in Period 2, then estimates of the difference in the prevalence of smoking may be higher in favor of Period 1 than they would otherwise be.  Hence, sampling variability may lead to loss in precision in estimates of change. Thus, survey weights were standardized to improve the precision of the estimates of change. Standardization was applied with respect to the 10 groups defined by the five age groups (1217, 1825, 2634, 3549, and 50+) and gender.  This procedure yielded weighted counts of each of these 10 groups that were constant across the periods compared (i.e., combined quarters 1 to 3 and quarter 4 in 2000 and 2001).  ***Table B.2*** in ***Appendix B*** provides the aforementioned weighted counts and Census projections.



|                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   
|-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   
|This page was last updated on May 10, 2003.SAMHSA, an agency in the Department of Health and Human Services, is
        the Federal Government's lead agency for improving the quality and
        availability of substance abuse prevention, addiction treatment, and
        mental health services in the United
States.
        Privacy 
                    Statement  |  Site 
                    Disclaimer  |   Accessibility
        What's
      New
    Highlights
    Topics
    FAQ
    Short
      Reports
    Pubs
    Data
    Mail
    OAS
    SAMHSA
    Search
|What's
      New