Hi, I am advising some folks on setting up a brief survey containing questions that measure some well-known health indicators.
My curiosity was piqued because amongst these questions the recall time frame differs between certain indicators.
For instance, there's this question:
During the past 30 days, how often did you smoke tobacco?
Daily
Less than daily
Not at all
Refused to answer
Then, later, there this question:
In a typical 7-day period, on how many days do you eat fruit?
(Range 0 - 7)
There are other questions that ask for recall of other time frames, as well.
In thinking of analyses, I wonder what, if any, the differential recall time frames have an impact on the type of model, variance estimation, and even on conclusions.
Simply put, what does it even mean to examine how daily tobacco use in the past 30 days relates to the number of days a person ate fruit?
I have analyzed survey data before but generally the recall time frame is consistent throughout. But this is a survey where the PI is cobbling together questions from different international surveys. I might be overthinking things but I thought I'd ask the community.
My curiosity was piqued because amongst these questions the recall time frame differs between certain indicators.
For instance, there's this question:
During the past 30 days, how often did you smoke tobacco?
Daily
Less than daily
Not at all
Refused to answer
Then, later, there this question:
In a typical 7-day period, on how many days do you eat fruit?
(Range 0 - 7)
There are other questions that ask for recall of other time frames, as well.
In thinking of analyses, I wonder what, if any, the differential recall time frames have an impact on the type of model, variance estimation, and even on conclusions.
Simply put, what does it even mean to examine how daily tobacco use in the past 30 days relates to the number of days a person ate fruit?
I have analyzed survey data before but generally the recall time frame is consistent throughout. But this is a survey where the PI is cobbling together questions from different international surveys. I might be overthinking things but I thought I'd ask the community.
