Potential use of telephone surveys for non-communicable disease surveillance in developing countries: evidence from a national household survey in Lebanon

Table 1 Comparison of the sociodemographic characteristics of the ‘cell phone carrier’ and the ‘any phone carrier’ subsamples to the ‘original HH sample’

	Original HH sample (A)		Cell phone sample^a (B)		Any phone sample^b (C)		p-value (B vs. A)	p-value (C vs. A)
	N_A	%	n_B	%	n_C	%
Total	2656	100	1381	52.0	2126	80.0
Gender
Male	1238	46.6	799	57.9	1054	49.6	<0.001	<0.001
Female	1418	53.4	582	42.1	1072	50.4
Age Group
18–34 years old	1237	46.6	820	59.4	1003	47.2	<0.001	0.602
35–54 years old	961	36.2	421	30.5	747	35.2	<0.001	0.310
≥ 55 years old	456	17.2	140	10.1	373	17.6	<0.001	0.666
Marital Status
Single	1069	40.3	723	52.4	881	41.5	<0.001	0.289
Married	1424	53.6	605	43.8	1113	52.4	<0.001	0.249
Divorced/widowed	163	6.1	53	3.8	131	6.2	<0.001	0.891
Governorate
Beirut	273	10.3	197	14.3	239	11.2	<0.001	0.154
Mount Lebanon	979	36.8	540	39.1	772	36.3	0.078	0.653
North	601	22.6	282	20.4	454	21.4	0.054	0.178
South	289	10.9	152	11.0	244	11.5	0.897	0.384
Bekaa	349	13.1	146	10.6	286	13.5	0.004	0.629
Nabatieh	165	6.2	64	4.6	130	6.1	0.014	0.928
Education
Primary and below	545	20.5	131	9.5	354	16.7	<0.001	<0.001
Complementary	663	24.9	302	21.9	508	23.9	0.008	0.292
Secondary/Technical	681	25.7	369	26.7	563	26.5	0.388	0.413
University & above	767	28.9	579	41.9	701	33.0	<0.001	<0.001
Occupational Status
Do not work	1426	53.7	511	37.0	1052	49.5	<0.001	<0.001
Governmental employee	165	6.2	111	8.0	151	7.1	0.080	0.087
Non- Governmental employee	515	19.4	373	27.0	438	20.6	<0.001	0.162
Self-employed	550	20.7	386	28.0	484	22.8	<0.001	0.019
Crowding Index
< 1 person per room	692	26.1	436	31.6	634	29.9	<0.001	<0.001
≥ 1 person per room	1955	73.9	942	68.4	1484	70.1
House Ownership
Owned	1885	71.0	984	72.1	1550	73.7	0.647	<0.001
Rented	744	28.0	381	27.9	552	26.3
Insurance coverage
Covered	1139	42.9	880	63.7	1321	62.2	<0.001	<0.001
Uncovered	1517	57.1	501	36.3	804	37.8

^a‘Cell phone sample’ included those who reported owning a cell phone, irrespective of landline ownership
^b‘Any phone sample’ included those who reported having a cell phone or a landline

ISSN: 1471-2288