What sort of data-related problems are associated with the rise in wireless-only households?
BLUMBERG: Well, the wireless-only population in general has been described as “the young and the restless,” so young adults are more likely to be wireless-only …people who are their renting homes… people who are changing jobs often… tend to be more likely to be wireless only. These people also have different health characteristics than others. We know they’re more likely to be uninsured, for example. They’re more likely to binge drink and to smoke. On the other hand they’re also more likely to exercise more often. If these wireless-only individuals are not included in health surveys than these health surveys may be biased in their results – that is a telephone survey that use only landline telephones may underestimate the number of adults who binge drink or may underestimate the number of adults who smoke if they don’t include the wireless-only. HOST: So what did your study find then? BLUMBERG: Well, this study that we’ve recently released looked at data from July to December of
