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Health Education Research Advance Access published online on September 17, 2009
Health Education Research, doi:10.1093/her/cyp046
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© The Author 2009. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Interviewer effects in public health surveys

R. E. Davis1,*, M. P. Couper2, N. K. Janz3, C. H. Caldwell3 and K. Resnicow3

1 Department of Environmental Health Sciences, University of Michigan School of Public Health, #6610B SPH Tower, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-2029, USA
2 Program in Survey Methodology, University of Michigan, 4040 Institute for Social Research Ann Arbor, MI 48104, USA
3 Department of Health Behavior and Health Education, University of Michigan School of Public Health, 1415 Washington Heights, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-2029, USA

Correspondence to: * Correspondence to: R. E. Davis. E-mail: reda{at}umich.edu

Interviewer effects can have a substantial impact on survey data and may be particularly operant in public health surveys, where respondents are likely to be queried about racial attitudes, sensitive behaviors and other topics prone to socially desirable responding. This paper defines interviewer effects, argues for the importance of measuring and controlling for interviewer effects in health surveys, provides advice about how to interpret research on interviewer effects and summarizes research to date on race, ethnicity and gender effects. Interviewer effects appear to be most likely to occur when survey items query attitudes about sociodemographic characteristics or respondents’ engagement in sensitive behaviors such as substance use. However, there is surprisingly little evidence to indicate whether sociodemographic interviewer–respondent matching improves survey response rates or data validity, and the use of a matched design introduces possible measurement bias across studies. Additional research is needed to elucidate many issues, including the influence of interviewers’ sociodemographic characteristics on health-related topics, the role of within-group interviewer variability on survey data and the simultaneous impact of multiple interviewer characteristics. The findings of such research would provide much-needed guidance to public health professionals on whether or not to match interviewers and respondents on key sociodemographic characteristics.

Received on February 18, 2009; accepted on July 27, 2009


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