Cycling of Non-Self-Representing Primary Sample Units in the National Health Interview Survey

Oregon Convention Center 

Recently the National Health Interview Survey tested the cycling of non-self-representing (NSR) Primary Sample Units in six states. A pilot study was conducted during the 2010-based design period to test operational feasibility and to evaluate the reliability of multi-year state estimates where the sample of NSR first stage units is not the same in all years. The pilot study was considered a success, and the National Center for Health Statistics requested that the Census Bureau include the cycling of NSR first stage units as a design feature for all states with NSR units in the upcoming sample redesign based on the 2020 Decennial Census. The primary goal of the cycling is to ensure sufficient degrees of freedom to allow reliable estimates for each state when pooling three years of data. In planning this sample redesign, we initially included a maximal set of counties in the overall cycling sample for each state. However, we found that this approach was neither necessary nor desirable to meet the requirements set forth by the survey sponsor. In this paper we explain how we arrived at our final first stage sample design and describe how the cycling of the NSR units is carried out.

Survey Sample Design, Multi-stage Sampling, Primary Sample Units, Cycling, National Health Interview Survey 

Survey Research Methods Section