Cell phones affecting CDC surveys

Here’s an interesting issue: If you live in a cell phone-only home, you could be contributing to a new problem that worries the people at the Centers for Disease Control. No, this isn’t a cell phone bashing post, telling you that it will do great damage to your health. Instead, the problem is, the CDC depends on doing large surveys involving health issues and health care across your state.

The researchers need this type of information to track illnesses and problems, figure out where certain resources need to be focused, and to see if programs are working. If they can’t get a large enough group across the targeted state, the results will be skewed.

Homes  most likely not to have a land line are those with young adults (For example, my 21-year-old son and his room-mate don’t have a land line phone. They use their cells exclusively) and those with very tight budgets. They often figure that they can save by not having a landline and using cells only.

According to this article, Rise in cell phone-only homes could distort health tracking, certain states have a higher cell phone-only population than others. The CDC can’t use cell phones for a few reasons, including cost. People usually have to pay for their minutes used, even if the call is received and they’d likely not be thrilled to spend their money to do a survey. As well, I was thinking that if you call someone on a cell, you don’t know if they’re home, and the chances of them wanting to answer a survey when they’re out are likely quite small.

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Image: MorgueFile