The National Household Survey on Drug Abuse (NHSDA) is the nation's primary
data source for information on the scope and dimensions of drug abuse in t
he United States. To improve data collection, the NHSDA was converted to a
computer-assisted interview (CAI) format in 1999. This paper reports on the
research that was done to guide the conversion. The main focus of the pape
r is on a large (n = 1,982) field experiment that examined different audio
computer-assisted self-interviewing (ACASI) procedures in the fourth quarte
r of 1997. This field experiment showed that ACASI is likely to increase re
porting of drug use among youth; that respondents can, on their own, correc
t inconsistencies in responses that are detected by the computer. and that
ACASI eases the response task for poor readers and less well educated respo
ndents.