title: Conducting telephone interviews with community-dwelling older adults in a state Medicaid program: differences by ethnicity and language preference.
abstract: We document the methodological challenges of conducting a health survey of an ethnically diverse elderly community-dwelling Medicaid population by telephone. Individuals (N=5,382) 65 years and older were randomly selected from a state Medicaid Management Information System and 618 eligible participants were interviewed. Participants were classified as non-Hispanic White, English-speaking (NHW-E; 69.2%), non-Hispanic Black, English-speaking (NHB-E; 6.2%), Hispanic, Spanish-speaking (H-S; 9.2%), and Hispanic, English-speaking (H-E; 4.2%). Almost half (44.2%) of the individuals sampled were unreachable, most often because of no valid telephone number. More interviewer time was required to reach and interview Hispanic participants. On average, interviews with H-S and H-E were 11 and 8 minutes longer, respectively, than with NHW-E. Spanish-speaking Hispanic respondents reported very high rates of receipt of preventive services relative to the other groups. These high rates by Spanish-speakers may be due to actual greater utilization or biases in self-reported data due to response style differences.
authors.affiliation: Center for Gerontology and Health Care Research, Brown University Medical School and Program in Public Health, Box G-S121, 6th floor, Providence, RI 02903, USA. Melissa_Clark@brown.edu
authors.forename: Melissa A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Clark
authors.forename: Michelle L
authors.initials: ML
authors.lastname: Rogers
authors.forename: Susan M
authors.initials: SM
authors.lastname: Allen
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D015982:Bias; D044383:Black People / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D018864:Cultural Diversity; D005006:Ethnicity / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D005260:Female; D006306:Health Surveys / Q000379:methods*; D006630:Hispanic or Latino / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006801:Humans; D007407:Interviews as Topic; D007802:Language; D008297:Male; D008484:Medicaid; D011314:Preventive Health Services / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D012111:Residence Characteristics; D012237:Rhode Island; D013997:Time Factors; D014481:United States; D044465:White People / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D001741:Black or African American