The National Opinion Research Center, led by a team of investigators at the University of Chicago, conducted more than 3,000 in-person interviews with a nationally representative sample of adults aged 57-85 years. Data collection included in-person questionnaire items, an extensive array of biomeasures, and a postinterview self-administered questionnaire. The National Social Life, Health, and Aging Project (NSHAP) interview included the collection of 13 biomeasures: weight, waist circumference, height, blood pressure, smell, saliva collection, taste, a self-administered vaginal swab for female respondents, "Get Up and Go," distance vision, touch, oral mucosal transudate (Orasure) human immunodeficiency virus test, and blood spots. This article discusses the development of NSHAP's instruments and implementation of the study design. Measures, such as response and cooperation rates, are also provided to evaluate the effectiveness of the design and implementation.

BackgroundCollecting biomeasures in the survey context is a relatively new tool for survey researchers. The National Social Life, Health, and Aging Project (NSHAP), an innovative, multi-modal study of older adults that examines the interaction between aging, social relationships, and health, is one example of a population study actively integrating social and biological data collection. Rather than presenting data resulting from the biological data collection, this article focuses on methodological and operational considerations for collecting biomeasures using nonmedically trained interviewers. We begin with an overview of NSHAP and other studies collecting biomeasures. We continue with a review of the study's field methods and provide the methodological background for the use of nonmedically trained interviewers to collect biomeasures. We then discuss the importance of interviewer recruitment, methods for training nonmedically trained interviewers to collect biomeasures, and monitoring data collection and data quality during the field period. Last, we evaluate our methodology by examining respondent cooperation, interviewer engagement, interviewer performance, and data quality and provide a summary of issues for future consideration.

Collection of vaginal self-swab specimens from older women in a population-based study is feasible and provides novel data on microenvironmental characteristics of the female genital tract relevant to analyses of gynecologic health, sexual activity and problems, and immune and inflammatory function.

Improved field methods included in-home collection, temperature control, establishment of a central survey biomeasure laboratory, and shipping, all of which were crucial for successful collection by the field interviewers and accurate laboratory assay of the biomeasures (92.1% average co-operation rate and 97.3% average assay success rate). Developed for home interviews, these biomeasures are readily applicable to other surveys.