Technical Description of the Health and Retirement Study Sample Design

This technical memorandum describes the sample design, sampling procedures, and sample outcomes for Wave 1 of the Health and Retirement Study (HRS). This document is divided into six sections. The introduction describes the purpose and organization of the HRS. Sections 2 and 3 provide an overview and a detailed description of the multi-stage area probability sample design. The fourth section reports the HRS Wave 1 sample outcomes -- a comparison of the expected versus observed occupancy, eligibility, and response rates. Sections 5 and 6 contain descriptions of the construction and use of the analysis weights and the codes and procedures for computation of sampling errors for the HRS data.