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It has been well documented that response rates to cross-sectional surveys have declined over the past few decades. It is less clear whether response rates to longitudinal surveys have experienced similar changes over time. This article examines trends in response rates in several major, national longitudinal surveys in the United States and abroad. The authors find that for most of these surveys, the wave-to-wave response rate has not declined. This article also describes the various approaches that these surveys use to minimize attrition.

\"Recent years have witnessed a resurgence in the interest in family size intentions and ideals in developed societies, partially stemming from the idea that realized fertility in these societies is lower than intended fertility. This paper addresses the question of the stability of family size intentions. Based on Heckhausen's life-span theory of control, it is hypothesized that young adults' family size intentions are likely to change as a result of their experiences in the family and occupational life domains. To study this issue, data are used from a Dutch panel survey in which respondents are questioned on their family size intentions six times over the course of 18 years. The results show that family size intentions are not stable, but are adjusted as people age. On average, the adjustment is downward, but some people do not adjust their intentions or even adjust them upwards. Much of this difference in age patterns can be explained by changes in the partner, educational, and occupational careers of young adults. Not finding a suitable partner and pursuing a career -- for women -- are important factors. But also the timing of the fertility career itself is of major importance. If respondents postpone having children until their thirties, they are much more likely to adjust their intentions downwards than if they start their childbearing career earlier.\" Die Untersuchung enthält quantitative Daten. Forschungsmethode: Sekundäranalyse; Längsschnitt; empirisch-quantitativ; Theorieanwendung; empirisch. Die Untersuchung bezieht sich auf den Zeitraum 1987 bis 2006. (author's abstract, IAB-Doku).

\"Our study aims to identify factors that facilitate or inhibit the realization of fertility intentions. The analysis uses data collected in the first two waves of a Hungarian longitudinal survey. Fertility intentions recorded at the first wave pertain to the subsequent 3-year period, just similar to the behavior variable measuring the realization of intentions, i.e., a birth within the 3-year period in question. For this analysis, we used the respondents' demographic, socio-structural, and orientational traits recorded at the first interview. Our findings show that age, parity, and partnership play a determining role in the realization of fertility intentions, but employment status, religious affiliation, and overall life satisfaction all exhibit significant effects. A marked gender difference was detected not only with regard to employment status but in the area of values and orientations as well.\" Die Untersuchung enthält quantitative Daten. Forschungsmethode: Sekundäranalyse; empirisch-quantitativ; Längsschnitt; empirisch. Die Untersuchung bezieht sich auf den Zeitraum 2001 bis 2005. (author's abstract, IAB-Doku).

Personality traits have been posited to function as stable influences on political attitudes and behavior. Although personality traits themselves exhibit high levels of temporal stability, it is not yet known whether the effects of these traits are marked by comparable temporal consistency. To address this question, this research note examines data from Wave 13 (2003-2004), Wave 15 (2005-2006) and Wave 17(2007-2008) of the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS). Twenty-seven behavioral and 14 attitudinal dependent variables are studied. Consistency of effects is gauged via a series of multilevel models in which personality effects are permitted to vary by year. High levels of temporal consistency are observed for personality traits as represented by the Big Five framework.

We investigated associations between later-life health and fertility history for women and men, using the British Household Panel Survey. We modelled health and its rate of change jointly with sample retention over an 11-year period. For women, childlessness is associated with limitation of activity for health reasons and faster acquisition of the limitation. High parity (four or more children) is associated with poorer health for both women and men. For the parous, this association is also found when age at first birth is controlled. Early parenthood is associated with poorer health. For parents of two or more children, a birth interval of less than 18 months is associated with having a health limitation and an accelerated rate of acquiring it. We conclude that biosocial pathways link parenthood careers and the later-life health of both women and men, and that implications of closely spaced births for parents merit further attention.

This article is intended to supplement rather than replace earlier reviews of research on survey incentives, especially those by Singer (2002); Singer and Kulka (2002); and Cantor, O'Hare, and O'Connor (2008). It is based on a systematic review of articles appearing since 2002 in major journals, supplemented by searches of the Proceedings of the American Statistical Association's Section on Survey Methodology for unpublished papers. The article begins by drawing on responses to open-ended questions about why people are willing to participate in a hypothetical survey. It then lays out the theoretical justification for using monetary incentives and the conditions under which they are hypothesized to be particularly effective. Finally, it summarizes research on how incentives affect response rates in cross-sectional and longitudinal studies and, to the extent information is available, how they affect response quality, nonresponse error, and cost-effectiveness. A special section on incentives in Web surveys is included.

Life satisfaction is often assessed using single-item measures. However, estimating the reliability of these measures can be difficult because internal consistency coefficients cannot be calculated. Existing approaches use longitudinal data to isolate occasion-specific variance from variance that is either completely stable or variance that changes systematically over time. In these approaches, reliable occasion-specific variance is typically treated as measurement error, which would negatively bias reliability estimates. In the current studies, panel data and multivariate latent state-trait models are used to isolate reliable occasion-specific variance from random error and to estimate reliability for scores from single-item life satisfaction measures. Across four nationally representative panel studies with a combined sample size of over 68,000, reliability estimates increased by an average of 16% when the multivariate model was used instead of the more standard univaríate longitudinal model.

PurposeWe report the prevalence and economic cost of skin cancer treatment compared to other cancers overall in the USA from 2012 to 2018.MethodsUsing the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey full-year consolidated data files and associated medical conditions and medical events files, we estimate the prevalence, total costs, and per-person costs of treatment for melanoma and non-melanoma skin cancer among adults aged ≥ 18 years in the USA. To understand the changes in treatment prevalence and treatment costs of skin cancer in the context of overall cancer treatment, we also estimate the prevalence, total costs, and per-person costs of treatment for non-skin cancer among US adults.ResultsDuring 2012–15 and 2016–18, the average annual number of adults treated for any skin cancer was 5.8 (95% CI: 5.2, 6.4) and 6.1 (95% CI: 5.6, 6.6) million, respectively, while the average annual number of adults treated for non-skin cancers rose from 10.8 (95% CI: 10.0, 11.5) to 11.9 (95% CI: 11.2, 12.6) million, respectively. The overall estimated annual costs rose from $8.0 (in 2012–2015) to $8.9 billion (in 2016–18) for skin cancer treatment and $70.2 to $79.4 billion respectively for non-skin cancer treatment.ConclusionThe prevalence and economic cost of skin cancer treatment modestly increased in recent years. Given the substantial cost of skin cancer treatment, continued public health attention to implementing evidence-based sun-safety interventions to reduce skin cancer risk may help prevent skin cancer and the associated treatment costs.

This study uses the Polish Panel Survey POLPAN 1988-2013 to showcase methodological issues of converting panel data into career trajectories. Three metrics are proposed to describe career trajectories: calendar year, age of respondent, and subsequent career year starting from the first job. I present the POLPAN data in each of these metrics and discuss their benefits and limitations. The article then deals with the issue of selecting a single job that best describes the respondent's occupational position when the respondent holds two or more different jobs. One possible solution is to select a single job using an original five-step algorithm. The problem of multiple jobs can also be solved by defining the career trajectory through occupational scales. A total of six such scales are available in POLPAN. The study further shows how data on career trajectories can be supplemented with data about job interruptions caused by unemployment, birth of a child, military service, or other reasons. A separate section is devoted to Converter-2015, a computer application that converts the original wide-format POLPAN data to the long format required in longitudinal analyses. I also propose an additional new \"presentation\" format, which helps identify job career patterns. The paper ends with a discussion of data quality issues.

Scholars view polarization with trepidation. But polarization may clarify voters' choices and generate stronger party attachments. The link between party polarization and mass partisanship remains unclear. I look to theories of partisanship to derive implications about the relationships among polarization, citizens' perceptions of polarization, and mass partisanship. I test those implications using crossnational and longitudinal survey data. My results confirm that polarization correlates with individual partisanship across space and time. Citizens in polarized systems also perceive their parties to be more polarized. And perceiving party polarization makes people more likely to be partisan. That relationship appears to be causal: using a long-term panel survey from the United States, I find that citizens become more partisan as they perceive polarization increasing.