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AHS 2005 National Survey Update

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The field work for the 2005 national American Housing Survey is now complete. The response rate was 89.2 percent, somewhat below the 90.8 percent of the previous survey. As with other surveys, the AHS is encountering more reluctance among respondents to participate by telephone. Also, more households are relying exclusively on cellphones, which makes the phone number for an address more difficult to determine. Thus, a larger proportion of the survey had to be completed by in-person interviews, which increased the cost and reduced the number that could be completed in the allotted (and, in some areas, extended) time.

On the other hand, an improved monitoring system allowed field supervisors to improve data quality while the interviewers were still at work. We have seen a notable drop in the number of transmitted cases that were deemed to have too little content to be considered completed interviews.

Hurricane Katrina had little effect on data collection, as the survey was virtually complete in that region before the disaster.

You can expect to see the 2005 dataset in late spring or early summer of 2006, as per our usual schedule.

Dav Vandenbroucke
Senior Economist
U.S. Dept. HUD
david_a._vandenbroucke@hud.gov
202-708-1060 ext. 5890