Advancing Measurement and Analysis of Sensitive Behaviors in the United States

 描述（由申请人提供）：在我国与生育有关的初级调查中，普遍存在的堕胎漏报问题影响了对堕胎、怀孕和生育的研究。人工流产在美国生育率中的作用相对鲜为人知，因为它仍然是一种高度敏感的行为，迄今为止的社会调查未能准确报告妇女的怀孕经历。研究人员早就认识到美国家庭调查中对堕胎的报告不足，但近20年来在提高妇女堕胎报告质量方面没有取得实质性进展。为了获得美国生育行为的准确衡量标准，并了解堕胎在妇女生活中的作用，我们建议开发新技术，并改进现有的方法来衡量堕胎报告，并与其他敏感行为的测量改进相关的发现。该项目将侧重于两个相关的目标。目标1将在三个广泛使用的具有全国代表性的调查中调查堕胎漏报的程度和相关因素。使用一些全国家庭增长调查（NSFG）的数据资源，我们将确定个人和背景水平的相关性漏报，利用很少使用的社会背景的地理编码措施。此外，我们还将研究按调查模式分列的男女报告之间的差异，以及从访谈员和行政报告中得出的调查层面因素的影响。我们将比较NSFG和其他两个具有不同堕胎问题措辞和管理手段的主要全国代表性生育率调查（1997年全国青年纵向调查和全国青少年健康纵向研究[添加健康]）之间妇女漏报的模式。最后，我们将研究在两个时间点对女性和男性既往流产的回顾性报告的一致性，利用AddHealth中完整妊娠史的重复测量。目标2将制定、测试和评价新的办法，在今后的调查中改进堕胎报告。我们将制定战略，以降低报告的敏感性，从目标1，认知访谈和焦点小组，目前正在开发的初步实验测试的分析结果的基础上。这些研究结果和专家小组的指导将用于设计和测试10个随机实验组在全国互联网调查。我们对实验组的初步计划是测试不同问题措辞对堕胎报告的影响以及调查中问题的位置。这些发现将通过显着改善美国堕胎和其他敏感行为的测量来推动生育行为和调查方法的领域，从而为研究开辟更广泛的可能性。

 DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Pervasive underreporting of abortion in our nation's primary fertility-related surveys compromises the study of abortion, pregnancy and fertility. Relatively little is known about the role of induced abortion in American fertility because it remains a highly sensitive behavior, and social surveys to date have not been able to elicit accurate reporting of women's pregnancy experiences. Researchers have long recognized the underreporting of abortion in U.S. household surveys, but no substantial progress in improving the quality of women's abortion reports has been made in nearly twenty years. To obtain accurate measures of U.S. fertility behaviors and to understand the role of abortion in women's lives, we propose to develop new techniques and improve existing methodologies for measuring abortion reporting, with findings relevant to improvements in the measurement of other sensitive behaviors. This project will focus on two related objectives. Aim 1 will investigate levels and correlates of abortion underreporting in three widely-used nationally representative surveys. Using a number of National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG) data resources, we will identify individual- and contextual-level correlates of underreporting, exploiting rarely- used geocoded measures of social context. Additionally, we will examine discrepancies in reporting by survey mode for women and men, and the impact of survey-level factors drawn from interviewer and administrative reports. We will compare the patterns of women's underreporting between the NSFG and two other major nationally-representative fertility surveys with varied abortion question wordings and means of administration (National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 and the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health [Add Health]). Finally, we will examine the consistency of retrospective reporting of prior abortions at two points in time for both women and men, utilizing the repeated measurement of full pregnancy histories in Add Health. Aim 2 will develop, test and evaluate new approaches to improve abortion reporting in future surveys. We will develop strategies to reduce sensitivity of reporting, building on findings from Aim 1, cognitive interviews and focus groups, and analysis of initial experimental tests currently under development. These findings and guidance from an Expert Panel will be used to design and test 10 randomized experimental arms in a national internet survey. Our initial plans for the experimental arms are to test the effect on abortion reporting of different question wordings and the placement of the questions within the survey. These findings will move the fields of fertility behaviors and survey methodology forward by significantly improving the measurement of abortion and other sensitive behaviors in the United States, thereby opening up wider possibilities for research.