An Overview of the North Carolina Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) Presentation to the State Health Director's Conference January 23, 2014 State Center for Health Statistics Division of Pubic Health NC Dept. of Health & Human Services

Presentation Outline How the survey is done Questionnaire development Sampling Data Collection Weighting Future developments Demonstrate how to access results Q&A State Center for Health Statistics Division of Pubic Health NC Dept. of Health & Human Services

Timeline for 2014 BRFSS External review of proposed new/revised questions State Coordinators vote on proposed questions CDC field tests questionnaire CDC Core & Optional Modules checked and finalized State-added questions reviewed and finalized CATI coding developed and checked Interviewers trained 2014Conduct interviews January through December CDC sends final weighted data to NC SCHS reviews data and produce web tables 2015

BRFSS QUESTIONNAIRE

Questionnaire Organization Each years survey is divided into three main parts CDC Core Questions CDC Optional Modules State- Added Questions Mandated by CDC; must ask all questions exactly as written States choose which modules they will administer; must ask all questions exactly as written Developed by each states coordinator

The Core The CDC Division of Behavioral Surveillance (DBS) works with other CDC programs to develop questions for the core & optional modules Proposed questions undergo two rounds of cognitive testing State Coordinators have input via Participation in State Working Group Participation as external reviewer for proposed questions Vote on proposed questions taken at Annual Conference Questions rotate in & out of core on a fixed schedule Just adopted a new 5-year plan for the core

CDC Optional Modules Process for developing optional modules is similar to the core CDC programs pay DSB for space on the BRFSS So the selection of optional modules available varies each year

State-Added Questions May include Questions from other surveys, including questions on CDC Optional Modules Questions written by state staff Each state has a process for soliciting proposed questions

Survey time is a very scarce resource When telephone interviews run past 15 to 20 minutes, Break-offs increase Data quality suffers as people say whatever comes to mind so youll leave them alone! Some cell phone respondents are more sensitive to length because they pay by the minute Pew Research Center successfully does 20 minute cell phone interviews

The 2013 NC BRFSS interview averaged 29 minutes 17 minutes of that is take up by Core questions and an expanded Optional Module on Health Care Access Core creep – expansion of the length of the core – is a major issue with state coordinators We have been trying to cut down on state-added and CDC Optional Modules to shorten the interview

SAMPLING

Random Digit Dialing (RDD) Surveys 4 digit numbers are generated at random within each combination of area code and phone exchange within a geographic area Resulting numbers are screened to identify non-working numbers Results in a random sample of telephone numbers for a given geographic region

BRFSS uses a Dual-Frame RDD Sample Landline Frame Numbers generated within area code/exchange combinations for landline telephones Telco companies share more information regarding these numbers Most importantly where the phone is located

Cell Phone Frame Numbers generated within area code/phone exchange combinations for cell phones Cell phone companies share little information about these numbers Little information on where owner of phone lives until they are interviewed

Increase in Cell Phone Only (Wireless) Households Roughly 38% of adults as of the end of These folks are: Younger More are minorities Less affluent Have some significantly different health conditions & behaviors Must sample this population to avoid biased estimates

DATA COLLECTION

BRFSS is a process, not a project Survey runs throughout calendar year Each month we receive separate landline and cell phone samples (~8,000 phone numbers total) To complete each months study Each landline number is called up to 15 times Each cell phone number is called up to 8 times We call seven days a week around 330 days every year

More difficult to reach cell phone respondents In the landline sample Get one completed interview every 1.4 hours of interview time Perform 38 dialings per completed interview 4,600 sample records yield ~900 completed interviews Cell Get one completed interview for every 1.7 hours Perform 97 dialings per completed interview 3,200 sample records yield ~100 completed interviews Bottom Line: We have to call many, many more cell phone numbers before finding someone who will complete the interview

WEIGHTING

Why Weight? We weight survey data to make our sample better match the population Some observations get counted more than others

BRFSS Weighting Systems The old BRFSS system used gender, age, race/ethnicity, & region within state to adjust the final results. The new rake weights adds adjustment by education level, marital status, renter/owner status & phone source (landline vs. cell phone) The new raked weights should improve the representativeness of the sample, particularly regarding socioeconomic status The new weights, together with adding cell-phone interviews, produces different estimates for some health indicators

Some estimates change a lot: Estimate increases by ~ 5.5 percent

Estimate increases by ~ 3.3 percent

Some estimates change very little: Estimate increases by ~ 1.0 percent

Estimate increases by ~ 0.9 percent

FUTURE DEVELOPMENTS

Change to Geographic Strata Beginning in 2014, geographic strata will be based on Area Health Education Center regions Able to stratify both landline and cell phone samples for these area

We will produce estimates for State as a whole Eastern, Piedmont & Western Carolina AHECS Counties when possible At least 500 completed interviews in the sample

HOW TO ACCESS RESULTS

Data for a calendar year are combined and analyzed Results for state and sub-regions are posted to SCHS Web page Main SCHS Web Page NC BRFSS Web Page

Contact Information: James Cassell Head of Survey Operations & BRFSS Coordinator State Center for Health Statistics North Carolina Division of Public Health 2422 Mail Service Center Raleigh, NC Voice: Fax: NC BRFSS Web Page State Center for Health Statistics Division of Pubic Health NC Dept. of Health & Human Services