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. 1981 Aug;71(8):835–840. doi: 10.2105/ajph.71.8.835

Potentials of local health surveys: a state-of-the-art summary.

L A Aday, C Sellers, R M Andersen
PMCID: PMC1619986  PMID: 7258445

Abstract

This paper provides a state-of-the-art summary of the potentials and limitations of local surveys for assessing health problems in local areas. The information they provide may be helpful for a variety of purposes such as measuring the need for services, planning programs to address these needs, and evaluating their impact. Particular advantages of surveys are that they: provide information on the needs of people who have not sought care; permit special studies of particular target groups; provide data on variables which are only available from "asking" people; enable information to be collected on a range of correlates and indicators of health care behavior; provide an opportunity for examining relationships among variables; and permit well-timed community estimates of the impact of experimental programs. Limitations include the validity and reliability of survey data, and the costs and other problems of survey implementation.

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Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

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