THE DRIVERS LICENSE LIST AS A POPULATION-BASED SAMPLING FRAME IN IOWA

Driver's license lists are infrequently used for population-based samp ling, presumably because of suspicions of poor population coverage. Th e 1990 Iowa driver's license list was compared with the 1990 census to evaluate coverage by 5-year age group, sex, resident county, and urba nicity. Coverage exceeded 90% among 15- to 74-year-old men and 15- to 64-year-old women, with uniform coverage by county and county urbanici ty group in these age ranges. In Iowa, these lists are convenient and cost-effective and appear to be representative for 25- to 64-year-olds . The representativeness of driver lists in regard to other factors an d in other geographic regions deserves further evaluation.