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AHS: Opinions sought on proposed changes.

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We are working on changes to the content of the 2005 national survey. As I have mentioned here before, the 2005 survey will feature sampling improvements designed to do a better job of reaching manufactured housing and assisted living units. We are also going to make some changes to the income module because of what Scott Susin found in his recent paper comparing AHS and CPS income measures.

While we're at it, we are looking at a few other areas to see if we can rephrase questions to make them work better, and we are considering dropping some questions that don't yield useful information. I would like your opinion on one of these proposed changes.

We have a series of questions about structural conditions. At one time these were "observation" items, in which the interviewer would fill in the answer based on what he saw. After 1997, they became respondent questions. They are not used in the ZADEQ recode of "adequate housing." We are considering dropping them to reduce respondent burden. These are the variables:

EMISSR: missing roof materials
EHOLER: holes in roof
ESAGR: sagging roof
EMISSW: missing wall materials
ESLOPW: sloping walls
EBOARD: windows boarded up
EBROKE: broken windows
EBAR: windows covered with metal bars
ECRUMB: crumbling foundation

An alternative to dropping these completely would be to replace them with three questions, one each on roofs, windows, and walls.

Are the current questions important to anyone's work? Would the proposed alternative do as well? Please reply to me or to the mailing list, as you like. Remember, to reply to the mailing list you have to include ahs@huduser.gov in your address header.

Oh, by the way: the 2003 survey goes into the field today!

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