OVERVIEW

The baseline survey includes a nationally representative sample of adult immigrants admitted to legal permanent residence during a specified period and two types of child immigrants who would not be found in the households of adult immigrants. A direct interview was sought with each individual, and proxy interviews were obtained when the sampled immigrant was a child.

• The sampling frame is based on nationally representative samples of the electronic administrative records compiled for new immigrants by the U.S. government (via, formerly, the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS)).

• The first full cohort (NIS-2003-1) sampled immigrants from the seven-month period May to November of 2003. This seven-month period includes the final five months of FY 2003 and the first two months of FY 2004.
• The sampling frame consists of new-arrival immigrants – immigrants arriving in the United States with immigrant documents acquired abroad - and adjustee immigrants - immigrants who are already in the United States with a temporary nonimmigrant visa (or, in some cases, illegally) and adjust to lawful permanent residence.
• The Adult and Child Samples are defined in terms of immigration category and age. The Adult Sample covers all immigrants who are 18 years of age or older at admission to the Lawful Permanent Residence (LPR) program. The Child Sample covers immigrants with child-of-U.S.-citizen visas who are under 18 years of age and adopted orphans under five years of age.

• The geographic sampling design includes all top 85 Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs) and all top 38 counties and to select a random sample of 10 MSAs from among the rest of the MSAs and a random sample of 15 county pairs from among the rest of the counties.
• Interviews were conducted in respondents' preferred languages. In the NIS-P, 46% of the interviews with adult immigrants were conducted in English, 26% in Spanish, and the remaining 28% in 17 other languages.
• The child assessments consisted of the Digit Span for Memory test and the Woodcock Johnson III, Tests 1,5,9, and 10 of Achievement. The Digit Span for Memory test and the WJ III Tests 1 and 10 were given to children aged 3 to 12, inclusive. Children aged 6 to 12, inclusive, also received the WJ III Tests 5 and 9.

The table below summarizes the type of questionnaires used for NIS-Pilot and NIS 2003.

Survey Contents

• HEALTH MEASURES: self-reports of conditions, symptoms, functional status, hygienic behaviors (e.g., smoking and drinking history), use/source/costs of health care services, depression, pain;
• BACKGROUND: Childhood history and living conditions, education, migration history, marital history, military history, fertility history, language skills, employment history in the U.S. and in foreign countries, social networks, religion;
• FAMILY: rosters of all children; for each, demographic attributes, summary indicators of childhood and current health, education, language ability, current work status, migration. Parent and sibling information;
• TRANSFERS: financial assistance given/received to/from respondent from/to relatives, friends, employer;
• ECONOMIC: sources and amounts of income, including wages, pensions, and government subsidies; type, value of assets and debts. All non-response in amount questions was followed by Random Assignments to reduce non-response.
• HOUSING ENVIRONMENT: type, ownership of consumer durables;

© 2006 The New Immigrant Survey · Princeton University
Princeton, New Jersey 08544