About the Mott Poll

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. Located within the Susan B. Meister Child Health Evaluation and Research Center of the University of Michigan, the goal of the Mott Poll is to represent the parental perspective in coverage of child health topics. Results are disseminated through monthly Mott Poll Reports, academic publications, and conference presentations.

Timely findings from the Poll contribute to public dialogue about children’s health and health policy. Findings also inform new policy initiatives and research ideas regarding a wide range of child and adolescent health issues, including parenting, school environments, mental and emotional health, and vaccines.

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. 

Mott Poll web-based surveys are fielded about 3 times per year with a sample of approximately 2000 KnowledgePanel® members who have children in their household. Each fielding includes multiple child health topics, with questions targeted based on family characteristics (e.g., child age, chronic condition status). 

Once data collection is complete, 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). Weighting allows Mott Poll to be generalized to the US population.

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.


Poll Team

Co-Director: Sarah J. Clark, MPH
Research Scientist, Department of Pediatrics, University of Michigan

Co-Director: Susan J. Woolford, MD, MPH
Associate Professor, Department of Pediatrics, University of Michigan

Poll Manager: Sara L. Schultz, MPS

Data Analyst: Acham Gebremariam, MS