Journal article

The Australian longitudinal study on male health sampling design and survey weighting: implications for analysis and interpretation of clustered data

Matthew J Spittal, John B Carlin, Dianne Currier, Marnie Downes, Dallas R English, Ian Gordon, Jane Pirkis, Lyle Gurrin

BMC PUBLIC HEALTH | BIOMED CENTRAL LTD | Published : 2016

Abstract

BACKGROUND: The Australian Longitudinal Study on Male Health (Ten to Men) used a complex sampling scheme to identify potential participants for the baseline survey. This raises important questions about when and how to adjust for the sampling design when analyzing data from the baseline survey. METHODS: We describe the sampling scheme used in Ten to Men focusing on four important elements: stratification, multi-stage sampling, clustering and sample weights. We discuss how these elements fit together when using baseline data to estimate a population parameter (e.g., population mean or prevalence) or to estimate the association between an exposure and an outcome (e.g., an odds ratio). We illus..

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Grants

Funding Acknowledgements

The research on which this paper is based on was conducted as part of the Australian Longitudinal Study on Male Health by the University of Melbourne. We are grateful to the Australian Government Department of Health for funding and to the boys and men who provided survey data.