Collecting retrospective data: Accuracy of recall after 50 years judged against historical records

• Published in: Social science & medicine (1982) Vol. 45; no. 10; pp. 1519 - 1525
• Main Authors: Berney, L.R., Blane, D.B.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford Elsevier Ltd 01.11.1997; Elsevier; Pergamon Press Inc
• Series: Social Science & Medicine
• Subjects: Accuracy; Aged; Aged, 80 and over; Archives & records; Biological and medical sciences; Childhood; Cohort Studies; Databases, Factual; Economic inequality; Elderly people; Epidemiology; Female; General aspects; Health; Health inequalities; Health Status; Humans; Interviews; Interviews as Topic - methods; lifecourse; lifecourse health inequalities retrospective data lifegrid; lifegrid; Male; Medical sciences; Memory; Mental Recall; Methodology; Middle Aged; Public health. Hygiene; Public health. Hygiene-occupational medicine; Quality of life; Recall; Reproducibility of Results; retrospective data; Retrospective Studies; Social Conditions; Social inequality; Social research; Socioeconomic Factors; United Kingdom - epidemiology; lifegrid; health inequalities; lifecourse; retrospective data; Human; Evaluation; Accuracy; Methodology; Health; Data; Epidemiology; Retrospective; Public health; Interview; Inequality

Recent interest in a lifecourse perspective on health inequalities will rekindle concerns about the accuracy of retrospective data. The present paper demonstrates that recalled information on some types of social circumstances can be obtained with a useful degree of accuracy using an interview techn...