Tuesday 16th July
Wednesday 17th July
Thursday 18th July
Friday 19th July
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Linking Survey and Administrative Records: Processes and selectivities of consent 1 |
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| Convenor | Ms Julie Korbmacher (Max Planck Institute For Social Law and Social Policy, Munich) |
| Coordinator 1 | Dr Joseph Sakshaug (Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg and Department of Statistics, Ludwig-Maximilians-University, Munich) |
| Coordinator 2 | Dr Gundi Knies (ISER, University of Essex) |
Researchers are invited to submit presentation proposals at the session "Linking Survey and Administrative Records: Processes and selectivities of consent" at the European Survey Research Association conference, July, 15-19, 2013 in Ljubljana.
The number of studies linking survey and administrative records is still increasing in the social sciences. There are two ways how to link data, with different implications. In statistical or propensity score matching sample units from a survey are matched to "similar" (in a statistical sense) units in the administrative records. The other way is to link the two data sources directly which requires respondents' consent. The latter approach is usually thought to be more promising, but the fact the respondents' consent is needed could lead to problems. For example, if not all respondents consent, the sample size of the linked data set decreases. Additionally, consent bias might occur in the case of systematic differences between consenters and non-consenters. Compared to the number of studies asking for consent to record linkage, relatively little is known about the mechanisms behind the consent question.
Papers in this session focus on experiences and consequences when asking respondents for consent to record linkage in a survey. Topics might include issues such as determinants of consent; ways to increase consent rates; interviewer effects on consent; consent bias; experimenting with consent questions; consequences of asking for consent; etc.
Proposals should be no more than 500 words in length and should also be sent to Korbmacher@mea.mpisoc.mpg.de.
In order to link survey data with administrative records informed consent of the respondent is needed. While there is a large and growing string of literature studying the underlying mechanisms that lead to the consent decision in interviewer based surveys, no evidence exists for self-administered surveys in the social sciences. In the absence of an interviewer, however, we believe the decision making process to be different. This study fills the gap identifying the correlates of obtaining consent in the German SAVE survey, a longitudinal mail survey. Our results are remarkably similar to those obtained for interviewer based surveys: The achieved consent rate is in fact in line with other studies while the pool of consenting individuals is at least as biased as in interviewer-based studies. In our empirical analysis we extend the common predictors used in existing studies by general attitudes towards trust as well as psychological traits. However we find only mild evidence that these factors influence the willingness to give consent. Apart from income and education, privacy concerns in combination with a general resistance towards the survey are found to be the main determinants of the consent decision. From the point of view of the researcher this is good news: While the social environment as well as the respondents' predisposition are out of the control for researcher, privacy concerns that are specific to the consent request can be mitigated by putting more effort in pointing out the benefits of consent and the limited risk of disclosure.
The primary objective of the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA) is to collect longitudinal multidisciplinary data from a representative sample of the English population aged 50+.
ELSA collects both objective and subjective data relating to health and disability, biological markers of disease, economic circumstance, social participation, networks and well-being.
Linkage to administrative records has been an important component of ELSA data collection plans since the inception of the study. The UK Government is increasingly seeing the importance of using administrative records on research studies to enhance the use of survey data and ELSA has been ahead of its time in the UK in terms of planning how linkage could happen.
At wave 1 of fieldwork, respondents were asked for permission to link to official records of National Insurance contributions, welfare and benefit receipt, and also details of any tax credits they may be claiming. A set of procedures for accessing such data is in place, overseen by an access committee.
Respondents have been asked for permission to link to Hospital Episode Statistics (HES) data. The HES data contains details of inpatient treatment (including day cases) such as route of admission, diagnosis, treatment, length of stay and type of discharge. Linked data has now been provided and we hope to make this available to users in 2013.
Thirdly, respondents were asked permission to link to official mortality data and cancer registration data.
This paper will show how permission is obtained, the rates of consent, and procedures for accessing linked.
British longitudinal surveys are the envy of the world but their use in health research has been limited by the lack of objective measures of health. To overcome these limitations, a number of the UK's longitudinal surveys have started to venture down the avenue of linking their survey population with administrative health records. The survey participants' informed consent is a necessary pre-requisite in linking survey data with administrative records.
In this paper we will present first empirical results from our new project on consent rates and consent bias comparing systematically data from two UK household panel studies and two British cohort studies. Our research is guided by two hypotheses that emerged from previous research, namely that consent to link to health records may be lower in studies that have not got a health focus, and (b) that the absence of a specific medial focus means that there is no difference in the health profiles of consenters and non-consenters to health data linkage.
To this end the project will exploit data from Understanding Society, the 1958 National Child Development Study, and (data access restrictions permitting) the 1946 National Survey of Health & Development to replicate, and further previous results reported for the British Household Panel Survey. Understanding Society and NCDS do not only collect self-reports of health but also biomarkers collected in a schedule administered by nurses allowing us for the first time to look at objective and subjective health profiles of consenters and non-consenters.
Factors and mechanisms which influence consent to record linkage are still insufficiently researched. This is especially true for establishment surveys and the consent behaviour of organizations. More research into consent is necessary because the lack of consent decreases the size of the linked sample. In addition, selectivity bias might occur when systematic differences between consenters and non-consenters exist. In 2012/2013 a representative establishment survey of German employers was conducted (N=1650). Establishments were sampled based on address information given by employed participants in the socio-economic panel study (SEOP). F2f-interviews with paper administration were used to interview the target person within the establishment who was either the owner of the company or a Human Resources representative. As part of the establishment survey, employers were asked for consent to link survey data to administrative records on employers and their employees held by the German federal employment agency. This paper investigates systematic differences between organizations that consented to record linkages and those organizations which did not. Due to the richness of the data at hand, we employ logistic regression models to estimate different groups of effects: we looked at (1) organizational factors such as size and structure of the company, formalization, organizational culture, (2) personal characteristics of the target person, and (3) survey specific factors such as interview and interviewer characteristics. Audio recordings of about 30 Interviews were used to interpret in-depth our findings from the quantitative analysis. Finally, consequences for future establishment surveys are discussed.