Assessing and enhancing the quality of longitudinal survey data

澳大利亚已开始大力投资于收集全国人口纵向调查数据。大部分工作首先集中于收集和传播，其次集中于分析，很少注意所收集数据的质量。这是不幸的，因为纵向调查显示出许多问题（例如，磨损，面板调节和接缝效应），而这些问题与更普遍的横截面调查无关。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，潜在用户的兴趣也会下降。因此，要最大限度地对纵向数据进行投资，就需要对方法论研究进行补充性投资。

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.