Statistical Matching of the Rapid Surveys System to the National Health Interview Survey

Thomas M. Menino Convention & Exhibition Center 

The Rapid Surveys System (RSS), managed by the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), is used to produce relevant and timely estimates on emerging health topics. Unlike other NCHS health surveys that use direct recruitment, the RSS surveys are administered through commercial online panels.

Previous work has shown differences between some RSS and National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) estimates. Statistical matching is one approach that can be used to remediate such differences by using a high-quality reference survey, such as the NHIS, as a basis. We consider two echelons of matching variables based on public-use data: an initial set consisting of socio-demographic characteristics that require exact matches between donors and recipients, and a second set of matching variables comprising health outcomes which will be used to generate competing distance matrices. This dual system can replace a large matrix with a more manageable collection of lower-dimensional matrices. These distances are not used deterministically but will inform probabilities of selection under repeated matchings. Monte Carlo estimates are then compared to NHIS variables not used in the matching proces

Statistical Matching

Survey Statistics

Imputation

Monte Carlo 

Survey Research Methods Section