Developing Calibration Weights and Standard-Error Estimates for a Survey of Drug-Related Emergency-Department Visits

• Kott, Phillip S. ^[1] ; Day, C. Daniel ^[2]
  1. [1] RTI International
  2. [2] Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration
• Localización: Journal of official statistics, ISSN 0282-423X, Vol. 30, Nº. 3, 2014, págs. 521-532
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • This article describes a two-step calibration-weighting scheme for a stratified simple random sample of hospital emergency departments. The first step adjusts for unit nonresponse. The second increases the statistical efficiency of most estimators of interest. Both use a measure of emergency-department size and other useful auxiliary variables contained in the sampling frame. Although many survey variables are roughly a linear function of the measure of size, response is better modeled as a function of the log of that measure. Consequently the log of size is a calibration variable in the nonresponse-adjustment step, while the measure of size itself is a calibration variable in the second calibration step. Nonlinear calibration procedures are employed in both steps. We show with 2010 DAWN data that estimating variances as if a one-step calibration weighting routine had been used when there were in fact two steps can, after appropriately adjusting the finite-population correct in some sense, produce standard-error estimates that tend to be slightly conservative.