1989 TEENAGE ATTITUDES AND PRACTICES SURVEY NOTES Introduction The Teenage Attitudes and Practices Survey (TAPS) is a follow-up study to the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS). A sample of 12,097 teenagers ages 12-18 was drawn from the last two quarters of the 1988 NHIS and the first two quarters of the 1989 NHIS to obtain information on adolescent tobacco use. Data collected included measures for prevalence, knowledge and attitudes, and predictors of smoking uptake. The TAPS used computer assisted telephone interviewing (CATI) for data collection and also included a mail component to contact teens living in non-telephone households and teens with telephones who did not respond by the end of CATI interviewing. The mail questionnaire sent to these teens included only a sub-set of questions from the CATI questionnaire. Questions selected for the mail questionnaire included measures for prevalence and some of the more important predictors of smoking uptake. Construction of the 1989 TAPS Data Record The first section of the record contains socioeconomic and demographic data from the NHIS and the TAPS and beginning with location 51, subject related data on adolescent tobacco use. Variables for weighting and methodological use begin with location 316. In most instances the organization of data fields on the record corresponds to the order of data items on the CATI questionnaire. Exceptions occur when data items have been deleted or recodes of data items have been inserted. Recodes of data items are specified as such in the "Item Number" column. Data items that are included on both the CATI and mail questionnaires are denoted by an asterisk preceding them in the "Item Number" column of the Public Use Data Record. Appropriate weights have been created that attempt to adjust for estimation errors due to missing data items for mail respondents. Instruction on how to use the weights is discussed under paragraph heading "Weights and Variances" below. Definitions of Smoking Status Modified NHIS Smoking Status: Never smoked: Never smoked 100 cigarettes in life Current smoker: Smoked 1-30 cigarettes in the past 30 days Former smoker: Smoked 100 cigarettes in life but no cigarettes in the past 30 days Smoker, DK status: Smoked 100 cigarettes in life but unknown if smoked in past 30 days -1- Adolescent Smoking Status: Never smoked, DK type: Never smoked a cigarette, Never tried or experimented with cigarettes, unknown if they will try a cigarette soon and/or unknown if they will be smoking one year from the time of the interview. Never smoked, no intention: Never smoked, never experimented, will not try a cigarette soon, and will definitely not be smoking one year from the time of the interview. Never smoked, contemplator: Never smoked, never experimented, may try a cigarette soon and/or may be smoking a year from the time of the interview. Current regular smoker, light: Smoked 10-30 days in the past 30 and smoked less than five cigarettes each day. Current regular smoker, heavy: Smoked 10-30 days in the past 30 and smoked five or more cigarettes each day. Current occasional smoker: Smoked 1-9 days in the past 30. Current regular smoker, DK type: Smoked 10-30 days in the past 30 and number of cigarettes smoked each day is unknown. Experimenter: Smoked or tried a cigarette but has not smoked 100 cigarettes and has not smoked in the past 30 days. Former smoker: Smoked 100 or more cigarettes but has not smoked in the past 30 days. Weights and Variances: Since the NHIS uses a multistage sample design to represent the civilian non-institutionalized population of the United States, data from the NHIS TAPS should be weighted for analysis. Two different TAPS estimators (weights) are included on the TAPS file. Each adjusts for the modes of data collection (CATI or mail) used for the TAPS. -2- One, labeled CM, is used in generating estimates based on variables common to both the CATI/Mail TAPS questionnaire. The specific data items requiring the CM weight are identified in the data documentation by an asterisk in the "Item Number" column. The CM final weight is in locations 340-347. The other, labeled C, is used in generating estimates based on the CATI TAPS questionnaire but not on the Mail TAPS questionnaire. The specific data items requiring the C weight do not have an asterisk preceeding them in the "Item Number" column. The C final weight is in locations 364-371. There are a number of computer programs that yield variance estimates for data based on complex sample surveys. Some are based on replication approaches and others are based on Taylor linearization approaches. To permit the analyst the capability of using such variance estimation procedures, included on the file for these two estimators are the interim weights (loc. 332-339 and loc. 348-355), which is the weight prior to poststratification, substratum identifier (loc. 321), full sample stratum identifier (loc. 329-331), pseudo primary sampling unit (PSU) codes (loc. 318-320), and type of PSU (loc. 317). In the TAPS the poststrata were defined by race (Black and non Black), sex (male and female), and age categories (12-13 years, 14-15 years, and 16-l8 years). These variables and weights are necessary for directly calculating sampling variances. -3-