Assessing and enhancing the quality of longitudinal survey data

澳大利亚已开始大量投资于收集全人口纵向调查数据。这项工作的重点首先是收集和传播，其次是分析，很少注意所收集数据的质量。这是不幸的，因为纵向调查表现出许多问题（例如，磨损、面板调节和接缝效应），这些在更普遍的调查横截面中不相关。如果没有足够的资源专门用于这些方法问题，实质性研究的质量就会受到质疑，潜在用户的兴趣就会下降。因此，要使对纵向数据的投资最大化，就需要对方法研究进行补充投资。

Australia has begun investing heavily in the collection of population-wide longitudinal survey data. Most of that effort has focused first on collection and dissemination and second on analysis, with scant attention paid to the quality of data collected. This is unfortunate given that longitudinal surveys exhibit many problems (e.g., attrition, panel conditioning, and seam effects) that are not relevant in more ubiquitous cross-section of surveys. Without adequate resources devoted to these methodological issues, the quality of substantive research will be questioned and interest from potential users decline. Maximizing the investment being made in longitudinal data thus requires a complementary investment in methodological research.