Conference Paper BHPS-2007 Conference: the 2007 British Household Panel Survey Research Conference, 5 July -7 July 2007, Colchester, UK

Rarely pure and never simple: extracting the truth from self-reported data on substance abuse

Authors

Publication date

2007

Abstract

We consider the misreporting of illicit drug use and juvenile smoking in self-report surveys and its consequences for statistical inference. Panel data containing repeated self-reports of ‘lifetime’ prevalence give unambiguous evidence of misreporting as ‘recanting’ of earlier reports of drug use. The identification of true initiation and reporting processes from such data is problematic in short panels, whilst more secure identification is possible in panels with at least five waves. Nevertheless, evidence from three UK datasets clearly indicates serious underreporting of cannabis, cocaine and tobacco use by young people, with consequent large biases in statistical modelling.
KEYWORDS: illicit drugs, smoking, misreporting, measurement error, nonparametric
identification, OCJS, BCS70, BHPS

Subjects

Drug/Alcohol Abuse, Young People, and Survey Methodology

Links

http://www.iser.essex.ac.uk/bhps/2007/programme/data/papers/Pudney.pdf

Related publications

1. Rarely pure and never simple. Extracting the truth from self-reported data on substance use

   Stephen Pudney

   Research Paper, Cenmap working papers, 11/07 - Sep 2006
   1. Drug/Alcohol Abuse
   2. Surveys

2. Rarely Pure and Never Simple. Extracting the Truth from Self-Reported Data on Substance Use

   Stephen Pudney

   Conference Paper, University of Tilburg, Department of Economics Seminar - 11 Jan 2008

3. Rarely Pure and Never Simple. Extracting the Truth from Self-Reported Data on Substance Use

   Stephen Pudney

   Conference Paper, Joint Empirical Social Science Seminar - 31 Jan 2007

#509235