Treatment of nonresponse in cycle two of the National Population Health Survey - ARCHIVED

The National Population Health Survey (NPHS) is one of Statistics Canada's three major longitudinal household surveys providing an extensive coverage of the Canadian population. A panel of approximately 17,000 people are being followed up every two years for up to twenty years. The survey data are used for longitudinal analyses, although an important objective is the production of cross-sectional estimates. Each cycle panel respondents provide detailed health information (H) while, to augment the cross-sectional sample, general socio-demographic and health information (G) are collected from all members of their households. This particular collection strategy presents several observable response patterns for Panel Members after two cycles: GH-GH, GH-G*, GH-**, G*-GH, G*-G* and G*-**, where "*" denotes a missing portion of data. The article presents the methodology developed to deal with these types of longitudinal nonresponse as well as with nonresponse from a cross-sectional perspective. The use of weight adjustments for nonresponse and the creation of adjustment cells for weighting using a CHAID algorithm are discussed.