Imputation in Surveys: Coping with Reality

In surveys a response may be incomplete or some items may be inconsistent or, as in the case of two-phase sampling, items may be unavailable.In these cases it may be expedient to impute values for the missing items.This article discusses the general problem of non-response and the problem of imputation.Methods of imputation are reviewed, and the evaluation of the effects of imputation on the survey estimates and the monitoring of the imputation process are discussed.