The State of Surveying Cell Phone Numbers in the United States: 2007 and Beyond

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Abstract
By the late 1970s, household telephone coverage grew to exceed 90 percent in the United States, and by the mid-1980s telephone surveying of the general public had become commonplace. Nevertheless, 20 years later, the ability of researchers to reach representative samples of the U.S. public via landline (wired) telephone surveys and gather reliable data is being seriously challenged for many reasons, especially those related to cell phones and the growth of the “cell phone only” population. However, at present there exists no widely accepted set of Cell Phone Surveying “best practices” for U.S. survey researchers to follow. Despite what some appear to believe, surveying persons reached on cell phone numbers in the United States currently is a very complex undertaking if one wants to do it “right,” i.e. to do it legally, ethically, and in ways that optimally allocate one's finite resources to gather the highest quality data, and to analyze and interpret those data accurately. This final “wrap-up” article in the special issue provides a review of the empirical articles in the issue with a focus on their practical implications for the decisions that researchers need to make regarding sampling, coverage, nonresponse, measurement, and weighting in surveys that include interviews with persons reached on cell phones. The article also highlights the practical implications of a number of legal, ethical, and other issues that relate to surveys in the United States that include cell phone numbers. Surveying the U.S. cell phone population is possible, if at a higher cost than surveying their landline counterparts, and if with less precision than currently can be done surveying the landline population. The next five years should see a considerable growth in the methodological and statistical know-how that the survey community uses to plan, implement, and interpret cell phone surveys. There is a great deal that still must be learned.

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