In Congressional testimony about the mandatory nature of the American Community Survey (ACS), it became clear that Congressional staff were advocating on behalf of constituents who felt "harassed" due to multiple efforts by the Census Bureau to obtain interviews. These repeated contacts with sample households is a consequence of multiple mailings, repeated telephone call attempts using Computer Assisted Telephone Interviewing (CATI) methods, and potential personal visits using Computer Assisted Personal Interviewing (CAPI) methods. The ACS, like other household surveys, strives to maximize response to achieve the highest levels of quality by reducing the potential for nonresponse bias. In some instances, households could certainly perceive these multiple contacts and multiple modes of contact as harassment.

In recognition of these concerns, we wanted to assess the potential cost and quality implications of reducing these contacts. We analyzed existing CATI data applying a series of alternative CATI termination rules. For this analysis we applied a set of plausible assumptions about how CATI households that would no longer be interviewed under our stricter CATI termination rules would behave in CAPI. We looked for options that would reduce the number of times that we try to contact sample households to complete the survey. We chose to focus on the CATI and CAPI operations, because testimony identified these modes as examples of when individuals felt especially aggravated. This paper draws on detailed analysis conducted by staff in the Decennial Statistical Studies Division and the Center for Statistical Research Methods. From those results, we estimated the likely impacts of proposed changes on contact attempts, costs, and quality.