Questions about Field Work
Were foster youth included in the Add Health study? If so, how many
were surveyed?
In the Add Health Wave I in-home interview, 61 respondents out of 20,745
were identified as living with a foster mother and/or foster father.
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How were adolescents identified as eligible for special oversamples for the in-home interview?
An adolescent's answer to a specific question or questions on the In-School Questionnaire determined his or her eligibility for inclusion in an oversample. For example, an adolescent who marked "Chinese" as his or her Asian or Pacific Islander background was eligible for the Chinese oversample. The genetic oversamples were identified in two ways. All adolescents who indicated they were twins were sampled with certainty. When an adolescent indicated at least one other household member in grades 7 through 12 with whom he or she did not share a biological mother and/or biological father, they were added to the pool of potential half-siblings and other, non-related adolescents. Full siblings were not oversampled.
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How did the interviewer select the parent to interview for the Parent
Questionnaire?
The instructions to the interviewer for selecting the parent to interview
for the Parent Questionnaire are detailed below.
Parent Interview
The mother (or other female head of the household) of the originally sampled adolescent will be asked to participate in a 40-minute, interviewer-administered, paper-and-pencil survey regarding health status and behaviors of the adolescent, home environment, and her interpersonal relationships. The parent survey instrument does not contain highly sensitive items about the parent; however, it does ask some sensitive questions about the adolescent. The adolescent's mother (or other female head of the household) is the preferred respondent to complete the questionnaire because, according to the results of previous studies, mothers are generally more familiar than fathers with the schooling, health status, and health behaviors of their children.
Identifying the Parent Survey Respondent
Upon your arrival at the household, ask to speak to the student's mother, the preferred respondent to complete the Parent Questionnaire. If the student's mother does not reside in the household, the appropriate respondent is the first person on the following list who lives with the student:
- stepmother
- other female guardian, such as a legal guardian or grandmother
- father
- stepfather
- other male guardian, such as a legal guardian or grandfather
Do not schedule an interview with a male respondent out of
convenience.
If the mother, stepmother, or other female guardian lives with the
adolescent but is unavailable at the time of your visit, ask your
household contact for the best time to reach her. If the preferred
female resident refuses to be interviewed, the adolescent's father,
stepfather, or other male guardian may act as respondent.
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What are the response rates for each wave?
The response rate for Wave I is 78.9%.
The response rate for Wave II is 88.2%.
The response rate for Wave III is 77.4%.
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What is the retention rate for Add Health?
Due to the design of the study, where Wave I seniors were not selected
to be interviewed at Wave II, retention rate is not an appropriate
statistic to use to describe Add Health study participation. Any
calculated retention rate would be misleading. The response rate at
each wave is the best indicator to use.
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Which cases were selected to be re-interviewed at Wave II?
16,706 of the Wave I respondents were selected to be re-interviewed at Wave II. In general, respondents who were seniors at Wave I and were not part of a genetic pair and the disabled sample were not selected to be interviewed at Wave II.
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How many of the interviewed Wave III public-use sample were originally selected for the core and high education black samples?
Wave III public-use sample = 4,882
Core sample only = 4,490
High education black sample only = 325
Both samples = 67
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Which cases were fielded at Wave III?
| 20,745 | Wave I in-home respondents |
| + 45 | Wave II only genetic respondents |
| | (Data for these respondents have never been released.) |
| - 687 | Wave I cases without a weight and without a genetic sample flag, |
| ______ | not selected for Wave III |
| 20,103 | Wave III fielded sample |
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Which cases were interviewed at Wave III?
| 15,170 | Wave I respondents interviewed |
| + 27 | Wave II only genetic respondents interviewed |
| ______ | |
| 15,197 | Wave III interviewed cases |
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Which sections of Wave III were self-administered?
Sections 16-29 were administered using Computer-Assisted Self-Interview (CASI) at Wave III.
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