REPRODUCIBILITY OF RESPONSES TO TELEPHONE INTERVIEWS - DEMOGRAPHIC-PREDICTORS OF DISCORDANCE IN RISK FACTOR STATUS

The reproducibility of responses to the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveil lance System questionnaire was examined across the demographic strata used by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and state healt h departments for reporting prevalence estimates (specifically age, se x, income, employment, and marital status), as well as race/ethnicity, which has been previously examined. The authors administered the ques tionnaire twice, 21-94 days apart, to randomly selected residents of M assachusetts (response rates: first administration, 68% of eligible ho useholds; second administration, 68% of persons who completed the firs t interview). Initial interviews were conducted in March and October 1 992. Among 448 respondents to both interviews, group mean distribution s of seven demographic characteristics and 19 risk factors were highly consistent across the two interviews, Discordance in individual risk factor status ranged from 1.2% to 21.8% (median, 7.8%) and was symmetr ic in direction, i.e., as many respondents were considered at increase d risk on the basis of the first interview and at low risk on the basi s of the second interview as the reverse. Kappas ranged from 0.30 to 0 .90 (median, 0.75), Education, household income, and interval between administrations were not associated with prevalence of discordance for any risk factor. Sex, age, race/ethnicity, marital status, and employ ment status were each predictive of variation in discordance for one o r more risk factors, but no consistent effect of any individual demogr aphic characteristic across risk factors was observed. The questionnai re has relatively uniform and generally good reproducibility across al l demographic strata used for monitoring the Health Objectives for Yea r 2000 and other chronic disease surveillance activities.