C.S. Mott Children's Hospital National Poll on Children's Health

The C.S. Mott Children's Hospital National Poll on Children's Health (Mott Poll) measures parental attitudes, experiences and priorities regarding health-related issues and trends for US children. The goal of the Mott Poll is to represent the parental perspective in coverage of child health topics, such as access to primary and specialty care, health and safety in schools and daycares, behavioral and mental health, and injury prevention. Results are disseminated through monthly Mott Poll Reports, academic publications, and conference presentations.

Data collection for the Mott Poll draws upon a nationally representative probability-sample panel of US households, the KnowledgePanel® (Ipsos Public Affairs, LLC). Panel recruitment utilizes address-based sampling; households without Internet access are provided a web-enabled computer and free Internet service. Ipsos conducts all data collection activities for the Mott Poll.

Mott Poll surveys are fielded 3 times per year; each fielding includes a unique sample of ~2000 KnowledgePanel® members who have children in their household. Each fielding includes up to six modules on specific child health topics; modules can be fielded to the entire sample, or targeted based on family characteristics (e.g., child age, chronic condition status).

Ipsos provides the Mott Poll team with de-identified survey responses and respondent demographic characteristics (e.g., age, race, educational level, household income). To reduce the effects of potential non-response and non-coverage due to panel recruitment methods and panel attrition, Ipsos constructs panel demographic post-stratification weights. Starting with each panel member’s base weight, an iterative ranking procedure is used to achieve an optimal approximation of the relevant benchmarks from the most recent data from the Current Population Survey (CPS). By using these methods, generalizations can be made from Mott Poll survey samples to the US population of parents.

A typical Mott Poll analysis includes generating weighted proportions for each survey items. Bivariate analyses explore associations between survey questions and relevant parent and child demographic characteristics. Margin of error is calculated to describe the precision of results.

C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital National Poll on Children’s Health

Co-Director: Sarah J. Clark, MPH
Co-Director: Susan J. Woolford, MD, MPH
Contributor: Gary L. Freed, MD, MPH
Design Lead: Sara L. Schultz, MPS
Data Analyst: Acham Gebremariam, MS
Poll Manager: Dianne C. Singer, MPH

For Reports: MottPoll.org
Email: npch@med.umich.edu