Examining the results of the 2008 Louisiana Behaviorial Rsk Factor Cell Phone Survey

Background: In 2008 the state of Louisiana conducted a pilot of the Behavioral Risk Factor Survey (BRFSS) aimed at capturing the population that uses a cell phone for communication and does not have a landline within the household. Studies such as the National Health Interview Survey have shown that more than 60% of younger age groups use cell phones as the only means for communication. Objective: The primary goal of the cell phone survey was to examine the population of cell phone users that are excluded from the traditional BRFSS landline survey. Certain populations such as younger aged adults and certain minority groups have low representation on the landline based BRFSS. Another goal of this report is to examine the proportion of cell phone users that had to evacuate due to a hurricane. Results: There were 304 interviews conducted for the 2008 Louisiana Cell Phone Survey. The percentage of respondents aged 18-34 interviewed from the 2008 cell phone survey were nearly twice the percentage of the respondents from the 2008 landline survey for the same age category. The proportion of Hispanics interviewed for the Cell Phone survey was also higher than the proportion of Hispanics that were interviewed for the landline survey. Almost half of the respondents interviewed for the cell phone survey stated that she or he had to evacuate because of hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Conclusion: The results of the cell phone pilot prove that certain populations that were underrepresented from the landline survey can be captured with the cell phone survey. The cell phone survey could also be useful in capturing populations affected by disasters and provide vital information to emergency response groups.