American Journal of Public Health, Vol 91, Issue 5 817-820, Copyright © 2001 by American Public Health Association
Subgroup-specific effects of questionnaire wording on population-based estimates of mammography prevalence
PZ Siegel, JR Qualters, PD Mowery, S Campostrini, C Leutzinger and DV McQueen
Division of Adult and Community Health, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, Ga., USA. pzsl@cdc.gov
OBJECTIVES: This study investigated whether an apparent downturn in
prevalence rates of mammography use reported in the 1992 Behavioral Risk
Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) questionnaire resulted from a change in
questionnaire wording. METHODS: In a pretest-posttest design (1990-1991 vs
1992), piecewise linear regression analyses were based on monthly
prevalence estimates of mammography use among female BRFSS respondents 40
years or older. RESULTS: Self-reported mammography use was lower by 3.5
percentage points (95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.5, 5.5) overall--and
lower by 13.6 percentage points (95% CI = 2.6, 24.6) among Black women with
less than a high school education--when predicted from 1992 data than when
predicted from 1990-1991 data. CONCLUSIONS: A change in questionnaire
wording in the BRFSS caused demographic-specific effects in
population-based estimates of mammography use.