Im posting an article that we will forward to the UP Forum for possible publication, please give substantive or editorial changes on how best to re-do this piece– thanks.
Can surveys help us arrive at the truth?
Introduction
The basic function of any demographer is to be able to describe a (human) population of interest’s primary characteristics: size, structure and, spread over a geographical boundary. It is his sworn task to track how these factors change through time and illustrate the period and tempo at which these changes occur. More of an attempt to describe, it is the capability to relate these population characteristics with the social, political, economic and, cultural phenomena that transpire—which makes the demographer a social scientist in his own right.
The domain of social science is a path difficult to tread. Different from the study of the natural sciences, individual human nature and behavior, is basically fleeting, ever-changing, and more often than not unpredictable. Thus the idea of modeling how an individual reacts to a certain stimuli in his environment, or how one person’s actions changes the environment to which he is situated in, becomes a demanding exercise. Imagine then the demographer’s task which accounts not only of certain individuals or groups, but the entire population itself!
If one is to consider describing the whole population, then it is but logical to demand that each individual is interviewed separately, and that a record exists for each individual (universality); and that the interview is conducted in reference to only one fixed point in time (simultaneity) for purposes of comparability and protection against maturation effects. Thus, a census of the population enables the demographer to gather information from all the elements, such that when the data gathering is flawless, the results of the census may be directly admitted as universal truth.
Indeed it is the desiderata of every demographer to have a complete enumeration of all the members in the population. But since, the topics that a demographer may see himself interested in covers a wide range of issues, the ideal state of complete enumeration may not always be reached. As an example, data that can be derived from the Philippine Censuses is limited only to basic individual and household characteristics and events such as migration. More than the issue of financial constraint, it is rather unwise for a census instrument to be a voluminous document; otherwise both the respondent and interviewer will be harassed at the end of every session yielding! Furthermore, undertaking a census for every conceivable topic a researcher wished to engage in is ambitious if not an outright frivolous exercise.
In the proverbial chef and soup pot analogy, one does not necessarily need to consume the bowl in order to taste the contents, it is enough to stir the pot and sip from a ladle to describe the taste. A census may not always be necessary to describe or understand a particular event as it suffices to just do a survey on the item of interest such that the survey questions directly address the focus of the study. This not to say however that the survey is inferior to a census in utility, as both are fraught with their own shares of advantages and disadvantages.
But up to how much then can we depend on surveys to get our answers? The scientist in us would readily say that it depends on how good our sampling of the population is, that is how much we stirred the bowl, and how much of a teaspoon should sip. How this is exactly done, we leave the methodological and theoretical considerations to the charge of the statisticians. Suffice it to say that for us demographers, the sample within which we get our responses from must be representative enough to lay ground for us to generate estimates at the national and sub-national levels.
UPPI- DRDF and its Surveys
Since its inception in 1964, the UP Population Institute has been an active stakeholder in the development, implementation, analysis, and publication of survey undertakings in both national and sub-national issues of concern. By linking with government agencies particularly the Population Commission and the National Statistics Office, the faculty and associates of the UP Population Institute serve in various capacities, providing technical expertise in consultancy, training and actual implementation of surveys in the country.
The NDHS or National Demographic and Health Surveys (then NDS or the National Demographic Surveys), a series of nationally representative surveys done every five years provide up-to-date information on fertility and childhood mortality levels; nuptiality; fertility preferences; awareness, approval, and use of family planning methods; breastfeeding practices; and maternal and child health— have been conducted by the NSO, Macro International together with the UP Population Institute. Just recently, members of the Institute have conducted a further analysis of the latest (2003) NDHS and released four monographs dealing with issues on Maternal and Healthcare utilization, and Health-seeking behavior; Contraceptive use, discontinuation and switching behavior; Determinants of Private Sector Sourcing of Contraceptives and; Unmet need for Family Planning in the Philippines and its Regions.
Together with its twin-head, the Demographic Research and Development Foundation, the UP Population Institute has been (in)famous in conducting the Young Adults Fertility and Sexuality Survey (YAFS).
First conducted in 1982, the YAFS1 sought to address primarily the gap in information on sexual and fertility-related attitudes and behavior of Filipino youth, as those topics were mainly considered taboo, the finding of the survey caused ripples in the national scene. YAFS2 conducted in 1994 expanded to include not only sex and-sex related issues but provided information on some significant events and institutions affecting young adolescent behaviors.
The latest of the YAFS series conducted in 2002 expanded even more to include all sixteen regions of the country, interviewing nearly 20,000 young adult respondents ages 15-27. For the first time, a new set of questionnaires were used to gain information on the practices of the Muslim Filipino Youth.
Sexuality, fertility and reproductive health are still the main focus of the study. Respondents were asked questions on dating and sexual behavior (including premarital sex, commercial sex, and same-sex experience), cohabitation and marriage, family planning, knowledge on STDs, HIV/AIDS, utilization of health services and attitudes and perceptions on divorce, live-in, gender identity and orientation, and abortion. Other non-sexual risk behaviors that were included in the survey are: smoking, drinking alcohol, substance use, violence, depression, and suicide and school suspension.
Characteristics such as the adolescents’ age, religion, religiosity, self-esteem and values, mass media use, residential history and information abut the respondents’ family, school, work, community, and peers were also gathered by YAFS3.
Apart from these surveys, the Institute also bears further analysis of the Philippine Elderly Surveys.
Conclusion
In the pragmatic sense, surveys allow us a cost and time efficient means of gathering information over a large number of respondents without actually examining the entire population. If arriving at the truth means validity and reliability of our findings, then appropriate statistical tools maybe applied to arrive at these.
In the theoretical sense however, surveys allow us to gain some glimpse in a system constantly in flux. That by dipping our ladles at certain fixed points in time, we can be able to analyze and describe the idea that we are measuring in the population we are interested in.
The idea of truth in the light of social science may take several meaningful constructs depending on what philosophy one is practicing. For our purpose then, we use the term truth to refer to an objective representation of reality and the contingencies that impinge on it. Moreover, the phrase arriving at the truth posted in the question suggests a journey by which we must allow ourselves to actively participate in and that there arises some necessary terminal stage on which we will all ultimately and finally succumb into. But is there a final destination when it comes to surveys anyway? When observing an ever changing system of events, there is none. The truth we get from surveys is as only as good as the time it was taken and the period it wished to describe at. Change will always be apparent.
Perhaps the even more exciting idea to examine is what the survey findings can do to alter reality. As in the case of elections survey results, it offers no clear guarantee of electoral victory, though it is already safe to assume that one’s candidate does indeed have name recall. It may be even more practical to assume that leading in a electoral survey will become a bane to one’s candidate as it may set trends for competitors to prey on.
However, the utility of surveys and survey results for us demographers and social scientists is not merely to have tools for our mental exercises, but more so enable us to act and advocate the results we get into more concrete forms; it must not be enough for us to stay and merely describe, we are called to act and initiate: by getting some general findings at a certain point in time, we are able to raise warning signals or make directions to which national policies and programs can build on and make our collective lives a little more better.
