Designing and Conducting Health Surveys: A Comprehensive Guide

Designing and Conducting Health Surveys is written for students, teachers, researchers, and anyone who conducts health surveys. This third edition of the standard reference in the field draws heavily on the most recent methodological research on survey design and the rich storehouse of insights and implications provided by cognitive research on question and questionnaire design in particular. This important resource presents a total survey error framework that is a useful compass for charting the dangerous waters between systematic and random errors that inevitably accompany the survey design enterprise. In addition, three new studies based on national, international, and state and local surveys―the UNICEF Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys, California Health Interview Survey, and National Dental Malpractice Survey―are detailed that illustrate the range of design alternatives available at each stage of developing a survey and provide a sound basis for choosing among them.

LU ANN ADAY, PHD, is the Lorne Bain Distinguished Professor in Public Health and Medicine at the University of Texas School of Public Health. She is the author of many books, including Evaluating the Healthcare System: Effectiveness, Efficiency, and Equity (1st ed., 1993; 2nd ed., 1998; 3rd ed., 2004); At Risk in America: The Health and Health Care Needs of Vulnerable Populations in the United States (1st ed., 1993; 2nd ed., 2001); and Reinventing Public Health: Policies and Practices for a Healthy Nation (2005). Dr. Aday is a fellow of AcademyHealth (formerly the Association for Health Services Research) and a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences.

LLEWELLYN JOSEPH CORNELIUS, PHD, is Professor of Social Work, University of Maryland at Baltimore, School of Social Work. He is also Associate Director of the Institute for Human Services Policy. He has been a visiting scholar at the University of Ghana-Legon, School of Public Health, Department of Sociology and the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, School of Public Health. He also has been a fellow in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Agency for Health Care Policy and Research.