AIMS Fieldworkers capturing reports of sensitive behaviors, such as substance use, may influence survey responses and represent an important factor in response validity. We explored the effects and interaction of fieldworker and respondent characteristics (age and gender) in substance (tobacco and alcohol) use reporting. We aim to further the literature on conditional social attribution effects on substance use reporting in the context of South Africa, where accurate estimates of modifiable risk factors are critical for medical and public health practitioners and policy-makers in efforts to reduce chronic disease burden and mortality. DESIGN We modeled substance use reporting using binary logistic regression. We also tested if fieldworker effects remained, allowing for correlation in reporting for respondents with the same fieldworker using multi-level logistic regression. SETTING Agincourt Health and Socio-Demographic Surveillance System site, rural South Africa. PARTICIPANTS We used data from a 2010-2011 study on HIV and cardiometabolic risk, ages 15+ (N = 4,684). MEASURES Lifetime and current alcohol and tobacco use. FINDINGS Respondents reported higher lifetime smoking use to older fieldworkers. Male respondents reported higher lifetime alcohol use to older fieldworkers. No fieldworker effects were significant on reports of current smoking. An older, male fieldworker increased the probability of reports of current alcohol use. Adjusting for intra-fieldworker correlation explained many of the observed fieldworker effects. CONCLUSIONS Our results highlight the importance of adjusting for interviewer characteristics to improve the accuracy of chronic disease risk factor estimates and validity of inferred associations. We recommend that surveys collecting information that may be subject to response bias routinely include anonymized fieldworker identifiers and demographic information. Analysts can then use these additional fieldworker data as a tool in evaluating probable bias in respondent reporting.

中文翻译：

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实地工作者对南非农村地区物质使用报告的影响。

AIMS 实地工作者捕获敏感行为（例如物质使用）的报告可能会影响调查响应，并代表响应有效性的一个重要因素。我们探讨了实地工作者和受访者特征（年龄和性别）在物质（烟草和酒精）使用报告中的影响和相互作用。我们的目标是在南非进一步研究有条件的社会归因对物质使用报告的影响，在南非，准确估计可改变的风险因素对于医疗和公共卫生从业人员和政策制定者在努力减少慢性病负担和死亡率方面至关重要. 设计 我们使用二元逻辑回归对物质使用报告进行建模。我们还测试了田野工作者的影响是否仍然存在，允许使用多级逻辑回归为具有相同实地工作人员的受访者报告相关性。设置 南非农村的阿金库尔健康和社会人口监测系统站点。参与者 我们使用了 2010-2011 年关于 HIV 和心脏代谢风险研究的数据，年龄在 15 岁以上（N = 4,684）。措施 终生和当前的酒精和烟草使用情况。调查结果 受访者报告说，年龄较大的田野工作者终生吸烟率更高。男性受访者报告老年田野工作者终生饮酒量较高。田野工作者对当前吸烟的报告没有显着影响。一位年长的男性田野工作者增加了报告当前饮酒的可能性。调整田野工作者内部相关性解释了许多观察到的田野工作者效应。结论 我们的结果强调了调整访问者特征以提高慢性病风险因素估计的准确性和推断关联的有效性的重要性。我们建议，收集可能受到回应偏差影响的信息的调查通常包括匿名的实地工作者标识符和人口统计信息。然后，分析师可以使用这些额外的现场工作人员数据作为评估受访者报告中可能存在的偏差的工具。