Measuring AIDS-Related Behaviors in Older Populations: Methodological Issues

Because of a dearth of research on reporting biases in the measurement of HIV-related sexual and drug use behaviors in older populations, it is frequently assumed that methodological findings of research conducted with younger populations will generalize to older respondents. In this study, estimates of the effect of the experimental manipulation of interview mode (interviewer administered vs. self-administered) were derived separately for three age strata: 12 to 49, 50 to 64, and 65+. Results of these analyses indicate that there were a number of noteworthy reversals in which interviewer-administered questioning in the older age strata produced higher esti-mates of the prevalence of substance use or alcohol-related problem behaviors. These results suggest that caution should be exercised in making generalizations from studies of reporting bias for HIV-related behaviors to older populations.