Journal Article

Same-Gender Sex in the United States: Impact of T-ACASI on Prevalence Estimates

Turner, Charles F., Rogers, Susan M., Gordek, Harper, Villarroel, Maria A., Eggleston, Elizabeth, Cooley, Philip C., Al-Tayyib, Alia, Roman, Anthony M.

2006

Overview

Well-conducted telephone surveys provide an economical means of estimating the prevalence of sexual and reproductive behaviors in a population. There is, however, a nontrivial potential for bias since respondents must report sensitive information to a human interviewer. The National STD and Behavior Measurement Experiment (NSBME) evaluates a new survey technology-telephone audio computer-assisted self-interviewing (T-ACASI)-that eliminates this requirement. The NSBME embedded a randomized experiment in a survey of probability samples of 1,543 U.S. and 744 Baltimore adults ages 18 to 45. Compared with NSBME respondents interviewed by human interviewers, respondents interviewed by T-ACASI were 1.5 to 1.6 times more likely to report same-gender sexual attraction, experience, and genital contact. The impact of T-ACASI was more pronounced (odds ratio = 2.5) for residents of locales that have historically been less tolerant of same-gender sexual behaviors and for respondents in households with children (odds ratio = 3.0).

• Publisher: Oxford University Press,Oxford Publishing Limited (England)
• Subject: Adults / Behavior / Bias / Computer assisted telephone interviews / Computer telephone integration / Drug use / Experiments / Gays & lesbians / Gender / Genitalia / Geographic regions / Health surveys / History, theory and methodology / Homosexuality / Households / Human sexual behavior / Impact analysis / Interviews / Measurement / Men / Methodology / Polls & surveys / Population / Probability / Public opinion / Reproductive behavior / Research methodology / Respondents / Response rates / Self Disclosure / Sexual Behavior / Sexual behaviour / Sexually transmitted diseases / Social science research / Sociology / Statistical mode / STD / Studies / Survey data / Telephone numbers / Telephone Surveys / Telephones / U.S.A / United States of America