The second edition of Designing and Conducting Health Surveys: A Comprehensive Guide identified a number of trends in the design and conduct of health surveys that have continued to resoundingly unfold: the topics addressed will be sensitive and complex; the populations that are the focus of health surveys will be harder to reach; computerized data gathering technologies present new possibilities, as well as problems, in gathering high-quality survey data; and a richer theoretical understanding of how respondents go about answering survey questions can also provide practical guidance to survey developers regarding how best to ask them.

This third edition of the book will strengthen the preparedness of survey developers in taking on these and related challenges in designing high-quality health surveys. The third edition draws heavily on the most recent methodological research on survey design in general and the rich storehouse of insights and implications provided by cognitive research on question and questionnaire design in particular. A total survey error framework is presented as a useful compass for charting the dangerous waters between the Scylla and Charybdis of systematic and random errors that inevitably accompany the survey design enterprise.

In addition, three new studies based on national, international, and state/local surveys-the UNICEF Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys, California Health Interview Survey, and National Dental Malpractice Survey-will be used to illustrate the range of design alternatives available at each stage of developing a survey and what might be a sound basis for choosing among them. Examples were chosen to illustrate different sample designs (area probability, random digit dialing, and list sampling), modes of data collection (in-person, telephone, and self-administered surveys), and topics (health status, healthcare access and utilization, health and health care disparities, healthcare provider attitudes and behavior). Extensive resources are available on the web for the first two surveys, to facilitate book users' access to timely updates on the methods and procedures for those studies.