This talk will describe a dissertation research project that has been incorporated into the CHCR's Eat for Life program to explore the relationships among the ethnic identities of African American telephone survey interviewers and respondents and how these relationships impact health survey data, program outcomes, program satisfaction, health plan satisfaction, and respondents' feelings about interviewers. This project involves the development of a linguistic coding system for phonological features in order to develop a proxy variable for conveyed ethnic identity.

<a href="http://chcr.umich.edu/who_we_are/people/person.2006-09-11.1933602012/person_view">Rachel Davis</a> is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Health Behavior and Health Education at the University of Michigan School of Public Health. She holds an MPH from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and has completed a certificate in Survey Methodology at the University of Michigan. Rachel works on the <a href="http://chcr.umich.edu/what_we_do/projects/project.2004-07-02.2138168557/projects_page">Eat for Life</a> project, which, under the direction of <a href="http://chcr.umich.edu/who_we_are/people/person.2005-04-12.3473287151/person_view">Dr. Ken Resnicow</a> and other investigators, is testing the efficacy of tailoring on motivational predisposition and ethnic identity to increase fruit and vegetable consumption among African American adults. Rachel's research interests include health communication, survey methodology, health disparities, and social relationships and health.<br>