Various Demographic Area Pretesting Activities

FSS POMS Focus Group Protocol Version 4 1/13/11

Introduction:

Hello, we’re ___________ and we work for _____________. Thanks for agreeing to help us today. Let me start by telling you a little about what we will be doing. Today we are working on developing some questions that we might ask people in a telephone survey. We are very much interested in your own opinions and thoughts today. There aren’t any right or wrong answers, I just want to hear things from your perspective.

Permission to Tape-Record:

Because it would be hard to keep track of everything you say today, I’m going to tape-record this session. HAND RESPONDENT CONSENT FORM. Please read this over and sign it. I want you to know that your responses will not be associated with your name and will only be seen by people working on this project. The tapes will be destroyed after we conduct our analysis. Your participation in this study is completely voluntary and you can decline to answer any particular question.

Do you have any questions before we start?

I. Framing Activities:

Show 8-10 administrative data sources. Probe on respondents’ knowledge of:

1) what kind of information do they have about you,

2) how did they get that information,

3) how long do they hold that information,

4) whether they’re legally allowed to share and who they might share it with.

a) IRS

b) Facebook

c) Mastercard or Visa

d) Social Security Administration

e) Federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services

f) Health Insurance Company

g) State Employment Office

h) Employer

i) Post Office

j) Marketing Firm

k) FBI

l) Equifax or Transunion Credit Bureaus

Pile Sort 1: “If you had to choose, from which of these entities would you be comfortable with a federal statistical agency—such as the Census Bureau, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, or the National Center for Health Statistics—getting your information? From which would you not be comfortable with a federal statistical agency getting your information?

Pile Sort 2: “If you had to choose, which of these types of information would you prefer that a federal statistical agency—such as the Census Bureau, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, or the National Center for Health Statistics—gets directly from you in a survey? Which types of information would you be ok with a federal statistical agency getting from another sources?”

[Discuss Results. Follow Prompts Below as Needed]

II. Data Sharing

In your own words:

What is data sharing? What is administrative data? What is administrative data linkage?

[Go through each of the 12 example entities from the Framing Activities]:

Which of these entities [from pile sort cards] share data, what do they share, and with whom do they share it?

Are you comfortable or uncomfortable with data being shared by each of these sources? What kind of data would you be comfortable with each one sharing? Where do you draw the line?

Are there situations where you think agencies should share data? Are there situations where you think agencies should not share data?

Differences in comfort with sharing. Public v Private? Types of data? Accuracy? Control or Privacy? Fear of enforcement?

Is there a difference between how the government and private companies take care of your data?

III. Information Collection Preferences

How do you feel about a federal statistical agency getting your name and address from your Employer? What about your income? How do you feel about me linking that to your Census records? Possibles: accuracy, privacy

Post Office versus Marketing firm. From which do you prefer for the government to get address information? Probe why? Possibles: right to refuse, assent.

1. Accuracy

Which is more accurate data for people in general, getting information directly from the public through surveys or indirectly through existing public or private records?

Which is more accurate data for you, getting your information directly from the public through surveys or indirectly through existing public or private records?

What do you think are the differences between administrative and survey data?

B. Security and Assent

Once you give your information to a government agency, do you control/own it or do they?

Does another government agency have the right to ask for and get your information? Should agencies share data?

What if they promise confidentiality? What do you think confidentiality means?

Assent versus consent. Do you think that federal agencies need to ask you every time they share data, or do you trust them to protect your information?

IV. Statistical Use

How do you think the federal statistical system uses information they would get either from surveys or from administrative data?

What impacts does this data have on your community, and on you?

Follow up: Group versus person harm of data use

When you hear that your information will only be used for statistical purposes, what does that mean?

Do you think that statistics are used to deny or provide funding to individuals? To groups? To towns or states?

V. Record Linkage – Discuss the following 2 questions.

1: Which one of the following statements do you believe is true?
(1) The government has a single central database of the name, address and date of birth of all US residents.
(2) There is no single government central database of the name, address and date of birth of all US residents, but there are separate databases with this information maintained by individual departments such as the Census, the Social Security Administration, and the IRS.
(3) There are no single government nor individual departments’ records of the name, address and date of birth of all US residents.
(4) Don’t know

2: And which, if any, of the following statements would you prefer to be true?
(1) The government has a single central database of the name, address and date of birth of all US residents.
(2) There is no single government central database of the name, address and date of birth of all US residents, but there are separate databases with this information maintained by individual departments such as the Census, and the IRS.
(3) There are no single government nor individual departments’ records of the name, address and date of birth of all US residents.
(4) Don’t know

IX. Post-test

Pile Sort 1: “If you had to choose, from which of these entities would you be comfortable with a federal statistical agency—such as the Census Bureau, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, or the National Center for Health Statistics—getting your information? From which would you not be comfortable with a federal statistical agency getting your information?

Pile Sort 2: “If you had to choose, which of these types of information would you prefer that a federal statistical agency—such as the Census Bureau, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, or the National Center for Health Statistics—gets directly from you in a survey? Which types of information would you be ok with a federal statistical agency getting from another sources?”

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