2020 American Life Panel Survey On Impacts Of Covid 19 Technical Documentation
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A RAND Corporation research report, RR-A308-1, published in 2020 and written by Katherine Grace Carman and Shanthi Nataraj, giving technical documentation for a survey on the impacts of COVID-19 fielded through the RAND American Life Panel. It describes the panel as a nationally representative internet panel recruited mostly through random digit dialing. The survey ran from May 1 to May 6, 2020; 2,622 panel members were invited and 2,052 participated, a 78-percent participation rate. A table lists the survey modules, including mental health, health care, financial well-being, schooling and employment, with question counts and sources. The report also explains the raking weighting method matched to the March 2019 Current Population Survey and lists references and acknowledgments.
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Research Report
C O R P O R AT I O N
KATHERINE GRACE CARMAN, SHANTHI NATARAJ
2020 American Life
Panel Survey on Impacts
of COVID-19
Technical Documentation
T
he coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic is having unprecedented effects on soci-
ety. Immediate and long-term interventions are needed to control the spread of the virus and
mitigate the economic impact on families. For interventions to be effective, governments,
businesses, and communities need up-to-date, reliable information about which individu-
als are most affected and how their health, employment, financial, and educational outcomes are
changing during the rapidly evolving crisis. High-quality, transparent, objective information is
essential for designing, targeting, and evaluating policies for those who need the most help in this
dynamic landscape.
In this report, we describe a survey fielded through the RAND American Life Panel (ALP) to
assess the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on individuals and households across a variety of
topics. We provide a technical description of the survey that includes a description of the ALP, the
objectives of the survey, and information about the fielding of the survey. A key strength of the ALP
is our ability to collect longitudinal data about respondents: Not only can we survey respondents
now and in the future to observe how the COVID-19 crisis has affected them, but we can use histori-
cally collected data as a pre–COVID-19 benchmark. This report applies to the survey conducted
between May 1 and May 6, 2020; a follow-up survey will be fielded in late summer 2020.
The American Life Panel
The ALP is a nationally representative internet panel that has been recruited almost entirely through
random digit dialing. To ensure that the panel is representative, respondents who do not have access
to the internet are provided with a netbook computer and an internet subscription free of cost. This
allows the flexibility and lower cost of an internet panel while still representing the segment of the
population that does not have internet access. Panel members are invited to participate in online
surveys once or twice per month on average. They are compensated financially for each survey to
increase response rates and representativeness. The ALP began in 2006; since then, almost 550 sur-
veys have been fielded on a variety of topics, including financial decisionmaking, health behaviors,
retirement decisionmaking, numeracy, long-term care use, elections, and subjective well-being.
Three times per year, all panel members are asked to were consolidated to avoid overlap across researcher
complete a survey that contains demographic infor- interests. Table 1 lists the topics included in the survey,
mation and questions about their employment status, the number of questions, and the external sources of
household composition, health status, well-being, questions if they were drawn from other surveys. Some
and health insurance. The responses to these ques- questions were newly developed for this survey or were
tions are automatically added to all data collected in drawn from past ALP surveys (the full text of the sur-
the panel, saving time and reducing respondent bur- vey questions is included in the online appendix). The
den. Additional information on the technical aspects estimated length of the survey was 15 minutes. Some
of the ALP is provided in Pollard and Baird (2017). sections were not asked of all respondents. For exam-
ple, questions about schooling were asked only of those
with children in the household, and questions about
The May 2020 Survey on employment were asked only of respondents who did
Impacts of COVID-19: Survey work for pay or profit (including self-employment,
Design and Content independent contracting, and gig economy work).
This survey was intended to measure the broad
impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on the gen- Sampling, Field Dates, and
eral population. The survey was designed by a large
Response
group of researchers who were interested in assessing
different impacts of the pandemic. Researchers from We invited 2,622 panel members to participate in the
across the RAND Corporation were invited to submit survey. These invitees included all panel members
research topics and questions. The questions and topics recruited through probability sampling methods who
TABLE 1
Survey Modules
Topic # of Questions Sources
Subjective well-being 4 Some questions were adapted from Diener et al. (1985) and Diener, Lucas, and
Oishi (2018)
Mental health 6 K6 Scale (Kessler et al., 2002; Kessler et al., 2010)
Disruption to routine behaviors 1* Adapted from Parks et al. (2018)
Health care 10 N/A
Experience with COVID-19 2 N/A
Information and trust 7* Some questions were adapted from Pew Research Center (2020) and Allington
and Dhavan (2020)
Common ingroup identity 1* Adapted from Gaertner et al. (1994)
Financial well-being 6 Some questions were adapted from Board of Governors of the Federal
Reserve (undated) and NORC at the University of Chicago (2020)
Online shopping and delivery 4* N/A
Schooling 3* N/A
Employment 16 N/A
Domestic conflict 2 Adapted from Rung et al. (2015)
Political affiliation 2 N/A
* Indicates that the section includes questions in which a respondent is presented with a table and asked to choose a response for each item in the
table. Each table is counted as one question. In cases where individuals were asked different questions based on their previous responses, the number
of questions reflects the maximum number of questions that any one individual could answer.
2
had answered the most recent demographic survey Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve, Codebook for
2018 Survey of Household Economics and Decisionmaking,
fielded in February 2020, as of May 1, 2020. The Washington, D.C., undated. As of May 15, 2020:
survey was closed after 2,052 panel members partic- https://www.federalreserve.gov/consumerscommunities/files/
SHED_2018codebook.pdf
ipated, leading to a 78-percent participation rate by
Diener, Ed, Robert A. Emmons, Randy J. Larsen, and Sharon
design. The survey went into the field on May 1 and Griffin, “The Satisfaction with Life Scale,” Journal of Personality
was closed on May 6, 2020. Characteristics of respon- Assessment, Vol. 49, No. 1, 1985, pp. 71–75.
dents are provided in a table in the online appendix.1 Diener, Ed, Richard E. Lucas, and Shigehiro Oishi, “Advances
and Open Questions in the Science of Subjective Well-Being,”
Collabra: Psychology, Vol. 4, No. 1, 2018.
Gaertner, Samuel L., Mary C. Rust, John F. Dovidio, Betty A.
Weighting Bachman, and Phyllis A. Anastasio, “The Contact Hypothesis: The
Role of a Common Ingroup Identity on Reducing Intergroup Bias,”
Detailed documentation of the ALP’s weighting Small Group Research, Vol. 25, No. 2, May 1, 1994, pp. 619–630.
methodology can be found in Pollard and Baird Kessler, R. C., G. Andrews, L. J. Colpe, E. Hiripi, D. K. Mroczek,
(2017). In brief, we used a raking algorithm to match S.-L. T. Normand, E. E. Walters, and A. M. Zaslavsky, “Short
the distribution of characteristics in our sample as Screening Scales to Monitor Population Prevalences and Trends
in Non-Specific Psychological Distress,” Psychological Medicine,
of May 2020 to the estimates of the distribution of Vol. 32, No. 6, 2002, pp. 959–976.
characteristics in the U.S. adult population, as mea- Kessler, R. C., J. G. Green, M. J. Gruber, N. A. Sampson,
sured by the March 2019 Current Population Survey E. Bromet, M. Cuitan, T. A. Furukawa, O. Gureje, H. Hinkov,
C.-Y. Hu, C. Lara, S. Lee, Z. Mneimneh, L. Myer, M. Oakley-
Annual Social and Economic Supplement (U.S. Browne, J. Posada-Villa, R. Sagar, M. C. Viana, and
Census Bureau, 2019). We matched our sample to A. M. Zaslavsky, “Screening for Serious Mental Illness in the
General Population with the K6 Screening Scale: Results from
population proportions of interactions of gender and the WHO World Mental Health (WMH) Survey Initiative,”
race/ethnicity, gender and education, gender and age International Journal of Methods in Psychiatric Research, Vol. 19,
No. 1, 2010, pp. 4–22.
groups, gender and household income, and house-
hold income interacted with household size. For NORC at the University of Chicago, “COVID Impact Survey:
Week 1, National Findings,” 2020. As of April 30, 2020:
some observations, there may be missing values for https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5e8769b34812765cff8111f7/
the variables used in calculating weights. To create t/5eaaf8da80320e177b4b53df/1588263150276/
covid_topline_national_WK1.pdf
weights for all observations, we used chained imputa-
Parks, Vanessa, Leah Drakeford, Michael R. Cope, and
tion to impute values where they were missing. Tim Slack, “Disruption of Routine Behaviors Following the
Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill,” Society & Natural Resources,
Vol. 31, No, 3, 2018, pp. 277–290.
Notes Pew Research Center, “2020 PEW Research Center’s American
Trends Panel Wave 63.5 Coronavirus Survey Final Topline,”
1
Because of a technical error, three questions asked of respon- 2020. As of April 29, 2020:
dents who reported being married or living with a partner in https://www.journalism.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/8/2020/03/
the February 2020 My Household Survey were not fielded with PJ_2020.03.18_Coronavirus-News1_TOPLINE.pdf
the rest of the survey. They were fielded from May 11 to May 18, Pollard, Michael, and Matthew D. Baird, The RAND American
2020. A total of 1,244 respondents were invited to respond to Life Panel: Technical Documentation, Santa Monica, Calif.:
these three questions; 1,206 respondents accepted the invitation. RAND Corporation, RR-1651, 2017. As April 29, 2020:
https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR1651.html
Rung, Ariane L., Evrim Oral, Elizabeth Fontham, Daniel J.
Harrington, Edward J. Trapido, and Edward S. Peters, “Mental
References Health Impact of the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill Among Wives
of Clean-Up Workers,” Epidemiology, Vol. 26, No. 4, 2015,
Allington, Daniel, and Nayana Dhavan, The Relationship pp. e44–e46.
Between Conspiracy Beliefs and Compliance with Public Health
Guidance with Regard to COVID-19, London: Centre for U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Survey: 2019 Annual
Countering Digital Hate, 2020. As of April 29, 2020: Social and Economic (ASEC) Supplement, Washington, D.C.,
https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/files/127048253/ March 2019. As of May 11, 2020:
Allington_and_Dhavan_2020.pdf https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/cps/techdocs/
cpsmar19.pdf
3
Acknowledgments
We appreciate the significant support, from the RAND Corporation and from
elsewhere, without which this report would not have been possible. We thank
David Grant, Karen Edwards, and Julie Newell for their excellent advice and
assistance in developing and implementing the American Life Panel survey, which
provided this report with its data source and foundation. We thank Fatih Unlu
and Matt Baird, as well as Nicole Maestas of the Harvard Medical School, for their
thoughtful reviews of this work. We also thank and acknowledge the following
group of researchers who contributed to the development of this survey:
• Philip Armour • Alicia Locker
The RAND Corporation is a research
• Joshua Breslau • Hui Lu organization that develops solutions
• Lois Davis • Miriam Matthews to public policy challenges to help
• Liisa Ecola • Kathleen Mullen make communities throughout
• Maria Edelen • Aisha Najera Chesler the world safer and more secure,
• Melissa Finucane • Andrew Parker healthier and more prosperous.
RAND is nonprofit, nonpartisan, and
• Shira Fischer • Michael Pollard
committed to the public interest.
• Courtney Gidengil • Charlene Rohr
• Laura Hamilton • Susann Rohwedder RAND’s publications do not
• Chaitra Hardison • Daniel Siconolfi necessarily reflect the opinions of
• Michael Hurd its research clients and sponsors.
• Sierra Smucker
is a registered trademark.
• Julia Kaufman • Jeffrey Wenger
• Jennifer Kavanagh Limited Print and Electronic
Distribution Rights
About This Report This document and trademark(s)
contained herein are protected
This report describes a May 2020 survey fielded through the RAND American
by law. This representation of
Life Panel (ALP) to assess the wide-ranging effects of the coronavirus disease
RAND intellectual property is
2019 (COVID-19) pandemic on individuals and households. This report pro- provided for noncommercial use
vides a technical description of the survey, including a description of the ALP, only. Unauthorized posting of this
the objectives of the survey, and information about the fielding of the survey. publication online is prohibited.
The accompanying appendix provides survey results. Permission is given to duplicate this
document for personal use only, as
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This study was undertaken by RAND Education and Labor, a division of the Permission is required from RAND
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Funding www.rand.org/t/RRA308-1.
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income from operations.
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