Data Collection Guidelines

Attachment 4 - ACBS Data Collection Guidelines

1. For Asthma Call-back Survey (ACBS) all standard Behavior Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) data collection protocols (such as call attempts, assigning dispositions to cases, etc.) should be followed. Data collection for the follow-up must meet guidelines and data quality criteria established for the annual state-wide survey.

2. The BRFSS core and (where applicable) child selection modules will be required to select a respondent for the follow-up. The respondent will be either be an adult (BRFSS respondent) or child (chosen using child selection modules; Random Child Selection and Childhood Asthma Prevalence) who has ever had asthma. All cases meeting the qualification criteria in BRFSS will be included in the follow-up sample. Only one Asthma Call-back interview per household will be conducted. If a household contains both an eligible adult and child, then one will be selected for the Asthma Call-back using a random selection process built into the BRFSS interview. The program should select the child 50% of the time and the adult 50% of the time. If a child is the selected sample member for the ACBS, the interview will be conducted with the most knowledgeable parent or guardian in the household; persons under age 18 years will not be interviewed directly. The BRFSS respondent at the core must be the parent/guardian of the child selected. If the BRFSS respondent is not the parent/guardian of the selected child, an Asthma Call-back survey for the child with asthma is not to be conducted (e.g. a core BRFSS respondent who is a sibling of the selected child, who is over 18, but is not the guardian of the selected child could not transfer the child call-back over to the parent/guardian of the child). The reason for this is that the core BRFSS data must also be for the parent/guardian of the selected child. However, the parent/guardian of the child can transfer the interview to the Most Knowledgeable Person (MKP) and grant this person permission to conduct the interview.

3. All states should make the BRFSS respondent aware that an Asthma Call-back will take place. A template with recommended wording for the question requesting permission to call the respondent back sometime in the next two weeks is provided in Attachments 5e -5f.

4. The ACBS is an extension of the regular surveillance efforts conducted as a part of BRFSS. A copy of the new BRFSS exemption email for the 2015 BRFSS is provided in Attachment 8a, with an expiration date of 10/20/16. ACBS has been classified as non-research, NCEH-ATSDR research determination is provided in Attachment 8a.

5. Because both the adult and child questionnaires were pre-tested and administered in three states during 2005, administered to 25 states in 2006, and 35 states in 2007, 37 states in 2008, 37 states in 2009 and 40 states in 2010 and has been running consecutively for nine years, therefore we will not be requiring a pretest of the 2015 questionnaires. However, states can do a pretest, it’s just not required. CA and PR provide a Spanish translation of each instrument. New states should test their CATI someway if they are not using one of the contractors currently conducting ACBS.

6. The ACBS does encourage and support calls made via cellular phones. Due to the complexity of the data-swapping process, the survey will not be supporting this record swapping technique. Therefore, please call cellular respondents that have been identified as being from your state. Please follow BRFSS’ cellular calling rules.

7. Data collection for the ACBS begins by February 1. Interviews are conducted within two weeks of the BRFSS interview completion date. Conducting the ACBS interview earlier than 2-weeks limit is preferred. If the respondent is willing to do an immediate ACBS survey, it can be conducted. If an immediate callback is conducted please help us to track this by entering a “2” in column 983 of the 2015 Adult Data Submission Layout or column 1004 of the 2015 Child Data Submission Layout.

8. Data will be submitted to the BRFSS Upload/Download Website under the heading of Special Surveys. The following schedule should be used to submit your data: (earlier submissions are fine if data collection is completed earlier)

Table 1 Typical Annual Data Submission Schedule
Activity	Approximate Time Schedule
Monthly data submission by states	March (Year 1) –April (Year 2)
Quarterly data submission by states	April (Year 1) - (January, February, March) July (Year 1) - (April, May, June) October (Year 1) - (July, August, September) December (Year 1) - (October, November, December) April  ( January, February, March Year 2)

Note: You can submit your data earlier!

Filenames:

AFA_     [Asthma Landline Adults]         e.g. AFA_ORAPR14x.DAT

AFC_     [Asthma Landline Children]       e.g. AFC_ORAPR14x.DAT

AFA_     [Asthma Cellphone Adults]        e.g. AFA_ORAPR14x_CEL.DAT

AFC_     [Asthma Cellphone Children]     e.g. AFC_ORAPR14x_CEL.DAT

Please submit files in the following format:

AFA_SSMMMYY.DAT for the asthma follow-up of adults (AFA)

AFC_SSMMMYY.DAT for the asthma follow-up of children (AFC)

SS represents the two character state abbreviation, MMM the three character month abbreviation (the last month interviews were conducted, and YY as the last two digits of the year. These files should be uploaded to the BRFSS website, under the Special Surveys link, and the Submit Files portal.

SS: State two letters initials

MMM: latest month three letters initials; If you send the data quarterly; ex: File with January, February, March should be named AFA_MIMAR15.DAT

YY: Year

12: For 2015 DATA

z: ONE LETTER(A-M) OR NUMER(1-9) FOR DIFFERENT VERSIONs (use with updated versions of a previous data file).

For states that will be completing their December 2015 data collection sample in January 2016, please name this file AFA_GADEC15.DAT, using the sample’s month and year.

9. Standard BRFSS case disposition codes and code assignment rules are required. Four additional codes have been added for the ACBS only:

Revised Disposition list is enclosed

10. A case should be considered as a partial complete (disposition code 1200) if either:

a. the respondent completed section 8 (medications) before terminating the interview; OR

b. the respondent completed section 7 (modifications to environment) but didn’t complete section 8 (medications) before terminating the interview but would have skipped section 8 due to a legitimate skip because he or she had responded “Never” to LAST_MED (3.4) “How long has it been since you last took asthma medication?”.

A case would be considered as a termination within questionnaire (disposition code 2100) if the respondent should have answered the questions about medications in section 8 and didn’t, or if they would have skipped section 8 but terminated the questionnaire before reaching the end of section 7 (modifications to environment).

11. PC Edits programs for the adults and children datasets will be provided by DBS. This is expected to be available at end of the first quarter of the 2015 processing year.

12. ACBS will weight the data and produce a final data set that includes the state-wide BRFSS data and the call-back survey data. Midyear files will be made available to the states for quality control checks.

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Last updated 1/23/2021 by DBS staff