Evaluating the Use of Residential Mailing Addresses in a Metropolitan Household Survey

On-site enumeration is generally regarded as the most comprehensivemethod for developing sampling frames for area household surveys.However, the time and expense associated with on-site enumerationoften precludes it from being a viable option for many householdsurveys. Residential mailing lists provide an alternative thatenables in-person surveys to be done cheaper and faster thanis possible with on-site enumeration. The primary drawback ofmailing lists is that the completeness of the lists is unknown.In this article, we evaluate the coverage of mailing addressesthat were used as a sampling frame for a probability-based surveyof 15,000 households in Dallas County, TX. The addresses wereobtained from the Delivery Sequence File (DSF) offered by theU.S. Postal Service (USPS) through a nonexclusive license agreementwith private companies. The DSF is a computerized file thatcontains all delivery point addresses serviced by the USPS,with the exception of general delivery. To evaluate the coverageof the mailing addresses, we used Kish's Half-Open Interval(HOI) procedure to search for missed housing units in the intervalbetween the selected address and the next address in deliverysequence order. A total of 46 missed addresses (1.9 percent)were found among the 2,380 HOIs randomly selected for examination.In addition, we discovered that the vast majority of personswho maintained a residential P.O. box also have mail deliveredto their street address. Finally, the mailing addresses yieldeda 90 percent occupancy rate, which is consistent with metropolitanhousehold surveys that use on-site enumeration methods.