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The present report reviews the results of a mailing experiment that took place within a large scale demonstration project. A postcard and stickers were sent to a random group of project participants in the period between a contact call and a survey. The researchers hypothesized that, because of the additional mailing (the treatment), the response rates to the upcoming survey would increase. There was, however, no difference between the response rates of the treatment group that received the additional mailing and the control group. In the specific circumstances of the mailing experiment, sending project participants a postcard and stickers as a reminder of the upcoming survey and of their participation in the pilot project was not an efficient way to increase response rates.

Currently underway, the Québec Population Health Survey (EQSP), for which collection will wrap up in February 2009, provides an opportunity, because of the size of its sample, to assess the impact that sending out introductory letters to respondents has on the response rate in a controlled environment. Since this regional telephone survey is expected to have more than 38,000 respondents, it was possible to use part of its sample for this study without having too great an impact on its overall response rate. In random digit dialling (RDD) surveys such as the EQSP, one of the main challenges in sending out introductory letters is reaching the survey units. Doing so depends largely on our capacity to associate an address with the sample units and on the quality of that information.

This article describes the controlled study proposed by the Institut de la statistique du Québec to measure the effect that sending out introductory letters to respondents had on the survey's response rate.

Based on a representative sample of the Canadian population, this article quantifies the bias resulting from the use of self-reported rather than directly measured height, weight and body mass index (BMI). Associations between BMI categories and selected health conditions are compared to see if the misclassification resulting from the use of self-reported data alters associations between obesity and obesity-related health conditions. The analysis is based on 4,567 respondents to the 2005 Canadian Community Health Survey (CCHS) who, during a face-to-face interview, provided self-reported values for height and weight and were then measured by trained interviewers. Based on self-reported data, a substantial proportion of individuals with excess body weight were erroneously placed in lower BMI categories. This misclassification resulted in elevated associations between overweight/obesity and morbidity.

This study examined the feasibility of developing correction factors to adjust self-reported measures of Body Mass Index to more closely approximate measured values. Data are from the 2005 Canadian Community Health Survey where respondents were asked to report their height and weight and were subsequently measured. Regression analyses were used to determine which socio-demographic and health characteristics were associated with the discrepancies between reported and measured values. The sample was then split into two groups. In the first, the self-reported BMI and the predictors of the discrepancies were regressed on the measured BMI. Correction equations were generated using all predictor variables that were significant at the p<0.05 level. These correction equations were then tested in the second group to derive estimates of sensitivity, specificity and of obesity prevalence. Logistic regression was used to examine the relationship between measured, reported and corrected BMI and obesity-related health conditions. Corrected estimates provided more accurate measures of obesity prevalence, mean BMI and sensitivity levels. Self-reported data exaggerated the relationship between BMI and health conditions, while in most cases the corrected estimates provided odds ratios that were more similar to those generated with the measured BMI.

In 2006 Statistics New Zealand started developing a strategy aimed at coordinating new and existing initiatives focused on respondent load. The development of the strategy lasted more than a year and the resulting commitment to reduce respondent load has meant that the organisation has had to confront a number of issues that impact on the way we conduct our surveys.

The next challenge for Statistics NZ is the transition from the project based initiatives outlined in the strategy to managing load on an ongoing basis.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) has an obligation to measure and annually report on the burden that it places on businesses participating in its surveys. There are also targets for reduction of costs to businesses complying with government regulation as part of the 2005 Administrative Burdens Reduction Project (ABRP) coordinated by the Better Regulation Executive (BRE).

Respondent burden is measured by looking at the economic costs to businesses. Over time the methodology for measuring this economic cost has changed with the most recent method being the development and piloting of a Standard Cost Model (SCM) approach.

The SCM is commonly used in Europe and is focused on measuring objective administrative burdens for all government requests for information e.g. tax returns, VAT, as well as survey participation. This method was not therefore specifically developed to measure statistical response burden. The SCM methodology is activity-based, meaning that the costs and time taken to fulfil requirements are broken down by activity.

The SCM approach generally collects data using face-to-face interviews. The approach is therefore labour intensive both from a collection and analysis perspective but provides in depth information. The approach developed and piloted at ONS uses paper self-completion questionnaires.

The objective of this paper is to provide an overview of respondent burden reporting and targets; and to review the different methodologies that ONS has used to measure respondent burden from the perspectives of sampling, data collection, analysis and usability.

We use a Bayesian method to resolve the boundary solution problem of the maximum likelihood (ML) estimate in an incomplete two-way contingency table, using a loglinear model and Dirichlet priors. We compare five Dirichlet priors in estimating multinomial cell probabilities under nonignorable nonresponse. Three priors among them have been used for an incomplete one-way table, while the remaining two new priors are newly proposed to reflect the difference in the response patterns between respondents and the undecided. The Bayesian estimates with the previous three priors do not always perform better than ML estimates unlike previous studies, whereas the two new priors perform better than both the previous three priors and the ML estimates whenever a boundary solution occurs. We use four sets of data from the 1998 Ohio state polls to illustrate how to use and interpret estimation results for the elections. We use simulation studies to compare performance of the five Bayesian estimates under nonignorable nonresponse.

In this Issue is a column where the Editor biefly presents each paper of the current issue of Survey Methodology. As well, it sometimes contain informations on structure or management changes in the journal.

Researchers are able to examine changes in trends over time, through the examination of responses to repeatedly-asked questions, among the same respondents, over several cycles of longitudinal data. Working with these repeatedly-measured responses can often be challenging. This article examines trends in youth's volunteering activities, using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth, to highlight several issues that researchers should consider when working with repeated measures.

Dependent interviewing (DI) is used in many longitudinal surveys to "feed forward" data from one wave to the next. Though it is a promising technique which has been demonstrated to enhance data quality in certain respects, relatively little is known about how it is actually administered in the field. This research seeks to address this issue through behavior coding. Various styles of DI were employed in the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA) in January, 2006, and recordings were made of pilot field interviews. These recordings were analysed to determine whether the questions (particularly the DI aspects) were administered appropriately and to explore the respondent's reaction to the fed-forward data. Of particular interest was whether respondents confirmed or challenged the previously-reported information, whether the prior wave data came into play when respondents were providing their current-wave answers, and how any discrepancies were negotiated by the interviewer and respondent. Also of interest was to examine the effectiveness of various styles of DI. For example, in some cases the prior wave data was brought forward and respondents were asked to explicitly confirm it; in other cases the previous data was read and respondents were asked if the situation was still the same. Results indicate varying levels of compliance in terms of initial question-reading, and suggest that some styles of DI may be more effective than others.

The Participation and Activity Limitation Survey (PALS) is Canada's national survey that gathers information about adults and children whose daily activities are limited by a physical, mental, or other health-related condition or problem.

This report presents a series of tables on the help with everyday activities as well as unmet needs and help providers.

This publication presents a series of tabulations produced from the General Social Survey on time use of Canadians. It includes information on average amounts of time spent on various activities by sex, by age, by selected role groups.

This report presents the results of a pilot survey conducted by Statistics Canada to measure the fuel consumption of on-road motor vehicles registered in Canada. This study was carried out in connection with the Canadian Vehicle Survey (CVS) which collects information on road activity such as distance traveled, number of passengers and trip purpose.

Cycle 15 of the General Social Survey (GSS) is the third cycle to collect detailed information on family life in Canada. The previous GSS cycles that collected family data were Cycles 5 and 10. Topics include demographic characteristics such as age, sex, and marital status; family origin of parents; brothers and sisters; marriages of respondent; common-law unions of respondent; fertility and family intentions; values and attitudes; education history; work history; main activity and other characteristics.

The target population for Cycle 15 of the GSS is all persons 15 years of age and older in Canada, excluding residents of the Yukon, Northwest Territories, and Nunavut, and full-time residents of institutions.

This table is part of the topic "Ethnocultural Portrait of Canada," which shows 2001 Census data on ethnic groups in Canada, such as their size, geographic location and demographic characteristics. Similar information is available for Canada's visible minority population.

Data on the socio-economic characteristics of these populations will be available at a later date. As well, data on religions in Canada will be available in May 2003.

Additional information on ethnocultural diversity will be available from the Ethnic Diversity Survey in the summer of 2003.

This table can be found in the Topic Bundle: Ethnocultural Portrait of Canada, 2001 Census, Catalogue No. 97F0010XCB2001000.

It is also possible to subscribe to all the day-of-release bundles. For more information, refer to Catalogue No. 97F0023XCB.

This table is available FREE on the Internet, Catalogue No. 97F0010XIE2001001.

The National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth (NLSCY), developed jointly by Human Resources Development Canada and Statistics Canada, is a comprehensive survey which follows the development of children in Canada and paints a picture of their lives. The survey monitors children's development and measures the incidence of various factors that influence their development, both positively and negatively.

Cycle 13 of the General Social Survey (GSS) is the third cycle (following cycles 3 and 8) that collected information in 1999 on the nature and extent of criminal victimisation in Canada. Focus content for cycle 13 addressed two areas of emerging interest: public perception toward alternatives to imprisonment; and spousal violence and senior abuse. Other subjects common to all three cycles include perceptions of crime, police and courts; crime prevention precautions; accident and crime screening sections; and accident and crime incident reports. The target population of the GSS is all individuals aged 15 and over living in a private household in one of the ten provinces.

The National Population Health Survey (NPHS) program is designed to collect information related to the health of the Canadian population. The first cycle of data collection began in 1994. The institutional component includes long-term residents (expected to stay longer than six months) in health care facilities with four or more beds in Canada with the principal exclusion of the Yukon and the Northwest Teritories. The document has been produced to facilitate the manipulation of the 1996-1997 microdata file containing survey results. The main variables include: demography, health status, chronic conditions, restriction of activity, socio-demographic, and others.

Information in this microdata file refers to survey data collected in September - November, 1994 for persons 15 years of age and older in Canada's ten provinces. The survey's main data objectives were to measure the prevalence and patterns of alcohol and other drug use, to assess harm and other consequences of drug use and to evaluate trends in recent patterns of use. Canada's Alcohol and Other Drugs Survey (CADS) also updates and expands upon data collected in the first survey, the National Alcohol and Other Drugs Survey (NADS), conducted in 1989.

Cycle 11 collected data from persons 15 years and older and concentrated on help given or received during temporary difficult times or out of necessity due to long-term health or physical limitations in daily activities either inside or outside the household. The target population of the General Social Survey consisted of all individuals aged 15 and over living in a private household in one of the ten provinces.

This overview describes the sampling strategy used to meet the collection and estimation requirements of the Canadian Health Measures Survey.

The Participation and Activity Limitation Survey (PALS) is Canada's national survey that gathers information about adults and children whose daily activities are limited by a physical, mental, or other health-related condition or problem.

This report presents some basic information about the survey and an overview of the methodological and content changes between the 2001 and 2006 PALS. The major difference involves a change in coverage resulting from the inclusion of a number of aboriginal communities, the addition of the three territories, and the modification to the definition of collective dwellings.

The data collection process is becoming increasingly more challenging due to a number of factors, including: ageing of the farm population, decreasing number of farmers, increasing farm sizes, financial crises arising from BSE (mad cow disease) and the avian influenza, and from extreme climatic impacts causing drought conditions in some areas and flooding in others. There also seems to be rising levels of concern about privacy and confidentiality. This paper will describe how agriculture is an industry in transition, how difficulties faced by the agricultural sector impact data collection issues, and how our subsequent responses and actions are addressing these challenging issues.

The Survey of Principals collects information on various topics related to the work of school principals. This article presents a brief description of this survey 's challenges and provides examples to illustrate the problems observed. The steps taken to resolve the challenges are described, and their impact on data quality is analyzed.

To understand the selection biases in model estimation when using longitudinal survey panel microdata, we consider a structural model composed of three equations for non-attrition/response, employment and wages. The three equations are freely correlated.

A recent development at Statistics Canada is the availability of monthly calendarized revenue data available from its Tax Data Division (TDD) through an agreement with Canadian Revenue Agency (CRA). This information has been shown to have a strong relationship with the revenue information collected by Statistics Canada's Monthly Survey of Manufacturing (MSM). This presentation will give a brief overview of the GST and the MSM and will concentrate on how the GST data were integrated into the survey process.

All member countries in Europe face similar problems with respect to Statistical disclosure control (SDC). They all need to find a balance between preservation of privacy for the respondents and the very legitimate requests of society, researchers and policy makers to provide more and more detailed information. This growing demand, due to developments of the information age and knowledge society is a common problem of the European Statistical System (ESS).In the paper current Eurostat confidentiality issues and strategy are discussed and is described a European SDC approach through the establishment of a Centres and Networks of Excellence (CENEX).

Hidden human populations, the Internet, and other networked structures conceptualized mathematically as graphs are inherently hard to sample by conventional means, and the most effective study designs usually involve procedures that select the sample by adaptively following links from one node to another. Sample data obtained in such studies are generally not representative at face value of the larger population of interest. However, a number of design and model based methods are now available for effective inference from such samples. The design based methods have the advantage that they do not depend on an assumed population model, but do depend for their validity on the design being implemented in a controlled and known way, which can be difficult or impossible in practice. The model based methods allow greater flexibly in the design, but depend on modeling of the population using stochastic graph models and also depend on the design being ignorable or of known form so that it can be included in the likelihood or Bayes equations. For both the design and the model based methods, the weak point often is the lack of control in how the initial sample is obtained, from which link-tracing commences. The designs described in this paper offer a third way, in which the sample selection probabilities become step by step less dependent on the initial sample selection. A Markov chain "random walk" model idealizes the natural design tendencies of a link-tracing selection sequence through a graph. This paper introduces uniform and targeted walk designs in which the random walk is nudged at each step to produce a design with the desired stationary probabilities. A sample is thus obtained that in important respects is representative at face value of the larger population of interest, or that requires only simple weighting factors to make it so.

This document summarizes the results of content analyses of the 2004 Census Test. The first section briefly explains the context of the content analyses by describing the nature of the sample, its limitations and the strategies used to evaluate data quality. The second section provides an overview of the results for questions that have not changed since the 2001 Census by describing the similarities between 2001 and 2004 distributions and non-response rates. The third section evaluates data quality of new census questions or questions that have changed substantially: same-sex married couples, ethnic origins, levels of schooling, location where highest diploma was obtained, school attendance, permission to access income tax files, and permission to make personal data publicly available 92 years after the census. The last section summarizes the overall results for questions whose content was coded and evaluated as part of the 2004 test, namely industry, occupation and place of work variables.

This article presents an analysis of Census at School survey results that shows what students themselves had to say about their reading and associated daily habits. It was written by Statistics Canada analysts as an example to students of the type of detailed analysis that can be made using Canadian Census at School results. The article uses data that were collected from over 22,000 students across Canada during the 2004-2005 academic year. Census at School is an international classroom project that teaches students aged 8 to 18 about statistical enquiry and census-taking. Students anonymously fill in an online questionnaire about themselves - their height, time use, eating habits and much more - and then use their class results to learn statistical concepts, practice data analysis and explore social issues. Their responses also become part of national and international project databases that are used for teaching statistics.

The Census at School statistical literacy project is not an official Statistics Canada survey conducted under the Statistics Act. Schools; students participate on a voluntary basis and the data collected are not representative of Canada's student population. This is clearly stated with the summary Canadian results that are made available on the project website for the benefit of participating students.

Starting in 1994, the Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics (SLID) will follow individuals and families for at least six years, tracking their labour market experiences, changes in income and family circumstances. An initial proposal for the content of SLID, entitled Content of the Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics : Discussion Paper, was distributed in February 1992.

That paper served as a background document for consultation wit h interested users. The content underwent significant change during this process. Based upon the revised content, a large-scale test of SLID will be conducted in February and May 1993.

This document outlines the current demographic and labour content, leading into the test.

When a survey respondent is asked to recall various events, it is known that the quality of the responses diminishes as the length of recall increases. On the other hand, increasing the frequency of data collection increases both the costs of collection and the burden on the respondents. The paper examines options which attempt to strike a reasonable balance between these factors. As it relates to this decision, the paper also describes how the sample has been designed to ensure that it remains representative of the target population, both for a given year and over time.

The conclusion is that, at this time, SLID should collect labour data in January to cover the previous calendar year and to collect income data in May, again to cover the previous calendar year.

This report describes the comments received as a result of the second round of the 2006 Census consultations. As with the previous 2006 Census consultation, this second round of consultations integrated discussions on the dissemination program, questionnaire content and census geography. However, the focus of this second round of consultations was placed on the 2001 Census of Population dissemination program and proposed directions for 2006 geography. Consultations were held from January to June 2004. Approximately 1,000 comments were captured through written submissions and the organization of over 40 meetings across Canada.

This report describes users' feedback on dissemination and geography issues received through this second round of consultations. In addition to user's comments, web metrics information serves as a valuable tool when evaluating the accessibility of public good data tables. Therefore, page view counts have been integrated in this report.

Some general planning assumptions that focus on the production and dissemination of 2006 Census products are also included in this report.

The National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth (NLSCY) is the first Canada-wide survey of children. Starting in 1994, it will gather information on a sample of children and their life experiences. It will follow these children over time. The survey will collect information on children and their families, education, health, development, behaviour, friends, activities, etc. This document describes the survey instruments of cycle 4.

This guide provides general information on the ethnic origin concept in the census and how the question of ethnicity has changed over time. In addition, the guide discusses the historical comparability of the ethnic origin data.

This guide will be of assistance in understanding the concepts, methodology and data quality of the surveys conducted as well as the data analysed by the Pensions and Wealth Surveys Section of the Income Statistics Division. It covers the following surveys/programs:- Pension Plans in Canada;- Trusteed Pension Funds (Census and Quarterly);- Survey of Financial Security; and- Pension adjustment/registered retirement savings plans data file provided by Canada Customs and Revenue Agency.

This paper discusses in detail issues dealing with the technical aspects of designing and conducting surveys. It is intended for an audience of survey methodologists.

In surveys with low response rates, non-response bias can be a major concern. While it is not always possible to measure the actual bias due to non-response, there are different approaches that help identify potential sources of non-response bias. In the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), surveys with a response rate lower than 70% must conduct a non-response bias analysis. This paper discusses the different approaches to non-response bias analyses using examples from NCES.

The 2001 Census Handbook is a reference tool covering every aspect of the 2001 Census of Population and Census of Agriculture. It provides an overview of every phase of the census, from content determination to data dissemination. It traces the history of the census from the early days of New France to the present. It also contains information about the protection of confidential information in census questions and variables, along with information about data quality and the possible uses of census data. Also covered are census geography and the range of products and services available from the 2001 Census database.

This series includes six general reference products: Preview of Products and Services, Census Dictionary, Catalogue, Standard Products Stubsets, Census Handbook and Technical Reports.

Cycle 1.1 of the Canadian Community Health Survey (CCHS) will provide information for 136 health regions. A brief overview of the CCHS design, sampling strategy, interviewing procedures, data collection and processing is presented.

This paper describes the collection method and content of the 1999 Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics (SLID) income interview.