A randomized response procedure for multiple-sensitive questions

The Randomized Response (RR) technique is a well-established interview procedure which guarantees privacy protection in social surveys dealing with sensitive items. The RR method assumes a stochastic mechanism to create uncertainty about the true status of the respondents in order to ensure privacy protection and to avoid tendencies to dissimulate or respond in a socially desirable direction. A very general model for the RR method was introduced by Franklin (Commun Stat Theory Methods 18:489?C505, 1989) when a single-sensitive question is under study. However, since social surveys are often based on questionnaires containing more than a single-sensitive question, the analysis of multivariate RR data is of considerable interest. This paper focuses on the generalization of the Franklin model in a multiple-sensitive question setting and on related inferential issues.