Using administrative data to complement survey results for a population-based health survey

Music City Center 

The Hennepin County (Minnesota) Public Health Department administers a large random address-based sample survey (SHAPE) on the health of the adult population living in the county every 4 years. Over 7000 households responded to the most recent iteration of the survey in 2022. As with all surveys, some respondents skip some questions (item non-response) or enter unusable answers. Since some of the questions, e.g., household size, household income, are key to either weighting the data or assigning the respondent to demographic groups of interest, it is important that these be as complete as possible.

Although the SHAPE survey does not identify the person completing the survey, the respondent's household address is known. The SHAPE team has attempted to use other administrative data available through the County with household-level information to complement the survey results to replace or impute the missing information. This effort tests the applicability and usability of matching survey and administrative data at the local level to improve the quality of the data.

Address based sampling

Public Health

survey methodology

local government

administrative data

health research 

Health Policy Statistics Section