L. Grummerstrawn et Pw. Stupp, AN ALTERNATIVE SAMPLING STRATEGY FOR OBTAINING CHILD HEALTH DATA IN AREPRODUCTIVE HEALTH SURVEY, Population research and policy review, 15(3), 1996, pp. 265-274
Retrospective demographic surveys typically collect substantial inform
ation about child health. This information is often collected for all
children born during a specified period. For women with several young
children, the interview can become quite long. To shorten the intervie
w, some surveys have asked child health questions only for the last ch
ild born. However, data on the last birth may be biased because last c
hildren have a younger age distribution and have longer subsequent bir
th intervals than does the average child. In this paper, we propose an
alternative approach to collecting child health data - that child hea
lth questions be asked only for a child chosen randomly from among the
respondent's children younger than age five. This alternative has the
advantage of keeping the interview shorter but does not lead to biase
d information.