The Iowa Child and Family Household Health Survey Methodology

For over a decade, the Public Policy Center at the University of Iowa, along with program partners at the Iowa Department of Public Health and Child Health Specialty Clinics have been collecting population-based information to assess the health and well-being of families with children in Iowa. In 2000, the Iowa Child and Family Household Health Survey (IHHS) was the first population-based data collection effort about the health and well-being of children and families in the state. The study was then conducted again in 2005, and 2010. Almost 9,000 interviews with Iowa families having been conducted in these three studies. This report provides a brief overview and history of the IHHS, and documents the survey design and procedures used in the IHHS. To improve the power to evaluate many topics in the survey, a series of questions called scaled measures are used for some topics in the IHHS. There is a section devoted to explaining these measures in this report.