Assessing Linkage Eligibility Bias in the National Health Interview Survey.

Background Linking health survey data to administrative records expands the analytic utility of survey participant responses, but also creates the potential for new sources of bias when not all participants are eligible for linkage. Residual differences-bias-can occur between estimates made using the full survey sample and the subset eligible for linkage. Objective To assess linkage eligibility bias and provide examples of how bias may be reduced by changes in questionnaire design and adjustment of survey weights for linkage eligibility. Methods Linkage eligibility bias was estimated for various sociodemographic groups and health-related variables for the 2000-2013 National Health Interview Surveys. Conclusions Analysts using the linked data should consider the potential for linkage eligibility bias when planning their analyses and use approaches to reduce bias, such as survey weight adjustments, when appropriate.

Comparative Analysis of the National Health Interview Survey Public-use and Restricted-use Linked Mortality Files.

Linking national survey data with administrative data sources enables researchers to conduct analyses that would not be possible with each data source alone. Recently, the Data Linkage Program at the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) released updated linked mortality files, including the National Health Interview Survey data linked to the National Death Index mortality files. Two versions of the files were released: restricted-use files available through NCHS and Federal Statistical Research Data Centers and public-use files. To reduce the reidentification risk, statistical disclosure limitation methods were applied to the public-use files before they were released. This included limiting the amount of mortality information available and perturbing cause of death and follow-up time for select records. To assess the comparability of the restricted-use and public-use files, relative hazard ratios for all-cause and cause-specific mortality using Cox proportional hazards models were estimated and compared. The comparative analysis found that the two data files yielded very similar descriptive and model results.

Evaluating Survey Report of Social Security Disability Benefit Receipt Using Linked National Health Interview Survey and Social Security Administration Data.

Linking nationally representative population health survey data with Social Security Administration (SSA) disability program data provides a rich source of information on program recipients. Survey participant data from the 1998-2005 National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) were linked to SSA administrative records from 1997 through 2005. The goal of this study was to assess agreement between the actual benefit receipt based on the SSA administrative records and the survey report of benefit receipt in the linked NHIS and SSA file for the U.S. civilian noninstitutionalized population. This evaluation provides information on the expected accuracy of survey report of Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefit receipt, including how participant characteristics may be associated with reporting misclassification. The results indicate that there is some underreporting of SSA disability benefit receipt based on the NHIS responses compared with the SSA administrative records. The analysis identified some differences between the concordant and discordant groups for selected characteristics, but there were no clear patterns among the different survey questions or the different survey participant characteristics.

Linkage of 1999-2012 National Health Interview Survey and National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey Data to U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Administrative Records.

Objectives This report presents the development, plan, and operation of the 2011-2012 National Survey of Children's Health, a module of the State and Local Area Integrated Telephone Survey, conducted by the National Center for Health Statistics. Funding was provided by the Maternal and Child Health Bureau, Health Resources and Services Administration. The survey was designed to produce national and state prevalence estimates of the physical and emotional health of children aged 0-17 years, as well as factors that may relate to child well-being including medical homes, family interactions, parental health, school and after-school experiences, and neighborhood characteristics.

Linkage of NCHS Population Health Surveys to Administrative Records From Social Security Administration and Centers for Medicare Medicaid Services.

Federally sponsored health surveys are a critical source of information on public health in the United States. The National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) is the nation's principal health statistics agency and is responsible for collecting accurate, relevant, and timely data. NCHS conducts several population-based national surveys as well as collecting vital statistics data, which are used by a broad range of users (researchers and policy makers, among others) to evaluate and profile the health of the American people. These national health surveys provide rich cross-sectional information on risk factors such as smoking, height and weight, health status, and socioeconomic circumstances, but information on longitudinal outcomes is often missing. Demand is increasing to incorporate information from additional sources in order to enhance the availability and quality of information on exposures and outcomes.

Concordance between survey report of Medicaid enrollment and linked Medicaid administrative records in two national studies.

The National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) and the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) are population-based surveys that have each been linked to administrative data from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS): the Medicaid Analytic eXtract (MAX) files. These linked data were used to examine, among children under age 18 years, respondent-level concordance between Medicaid or the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) enrollment as reported in each survey (NHANES and NHIS) and as indicated by administrative data from the MAX files. Concordance was defined as having Medicaid/CHIP reported as a health insurance source in the survey questionnaire and having a CMS Medicaid/CHIP administrative record in the same month and year as the interview. Records were also considered concordant if there was no report of Medicaid/CHIP coverage based on the interview response and no match to the CMS administrative records for Medicaid enrollment. Between NHANES and MAX, 88% of observations were concordant with respect to Medicaid or CHIP enrollment, yielding a Kappa of 0.71. Between NHIS and MAX, 89% of observations were concordant with respect to Medicaid or CHIP enrollment, yielding a Kappa of 0.73. These concordance rates provide support for the use of both administrative and NHANES and NHIS as a valuable tool for public health researchers and survey methodologists.