Women and Health Care in the Early Years of the ACA: Key Findings from the 2013 Kaiser Women's Health Survey

Methods

The 2013 Kaiser Women’s Health Survey obtained land line and cellular telephone interviews with a nationally representative sample of 3,015 women ages 15 to 64 living in the United States. The survey was conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates International (PSRAI). Interviews were done in English and Spanish by Princeton Data Source LLC from September 19 to November 21, 2013. A combination of landline and cellular random digit dial (RDD) samples was used to represent all women ages 15 to 64 in the United States who have access to either a landline or cellular telephone. Both samples were provided by Survey Sampling International, LLC (SSI) according to PSRAI specifications.

For the landline sample, interviewers first asked to speak with the youngest female adult ages 18 to 64 who was at home. Once an eligible adult respondent was on the phone, interviewers determined if any eligible teens ages 15 to 17 lived in the household. If the household contained both an eligible adult and an eligible teen, one was chosen to interview, but priority was given to the teen interviews in recognition of the challenges of obtaining those interviews. Cell phone interviews started by first determining whether the person who answered the phone was eligible for the adult interview. If not, the interview was coded as ineligible and terminated. If the cell phone respondent was eligible for the adult interview, it was then determined whether or not they were the parent or guardian of any girls ages 15 to 17. Parental consent was obtained for all teen interviews and households where a teen interview was completed were sent $50 for their participation.

The samples were disproportionately-stratified to reach more low-income women and to increase the incidence of African American and Latina respondents. The data were weighted in the analysis to remove the disproportion from the selection rates by stratum and to make the data fully representative of women ages 15 to 64 living in the United States, as well as to compensate for patterns of nonresponse that might bias results. The weighting was accomplished in multiple stages to account for [a] the disproportionately-stratified samples, [b] the overlapping landline and cell sample frames, [c] household composition and [d] differential non-response associated with sample demographics.

A shorter companion survey of men was conducted via telephone (landline and cell phone) interviews with a nationally representative sample of 700 men ages 18 to 64 living in the United States to examine differences between women and men on a range of measures. Limited amounts of data on men are presented in this report and more detailed findings on men will be the subject of another forthcoming paper.

The margin of sampling error for the complete set of weighted data and for age subgroups of women as well as the full sample of men are shown in Table 2. When possible, statistically significant at p<.05, differences are noted in the tables and graphics included in the report.

Table 2: Survey sample size and margin of error
	Sample Size	Margin of Error
Total sample of women ages 15-64	3,015	2.9 percentage points
Women ages 18-64	2,907	3.0 percentage points
Women ages 15-44	1,403	4.1 percentage points
Total sample of men 18-64	700	4.3 percentage points