Data Collection in Cross‐national and International Surveys

This chapter provides some of the notable efforts made in advancing high quality scientific survey research in Latin America and the Caribbean. It also addresses the increasingly serious challenges that data collection in the region has to confront, namely, high and increasing levels of crime and violence, frequent difficulties in obtaining comprehensive high quality census data and census maps, and restrictions on freedom of expression, particularly in the media. The chapter discusses techniques for addressing these challenges, as well as for using new technology to greatly improve the quality of data via reduction of fieldwork error and interview fabrication. It deals with the goal of sharing techniques for overcoming, or at least minimizing, the difficulties imposed by these challenges to data collection both within and outside the Latin America and Caribbean region. Yet, when the design is explicitly national in scope, challenges arise when census data and census maps are out of date or unavailable.